Training community organizers in the austerity state: lessons from the field

ABSTRACT

Community organizing can play a critical role as a grassroots form of democratic activism which challenges austerity politics sweeping the globe. What is required is not only a democratization of the state through counter-hegemonic political victories, but in the US as well as the UK politicized social movements and grassroots community organizing tied to progressive and radical praxis. The Community Organisers Programme (COP) in England, which trained and hired more than 500 community organizers between 2011 and 2015, can serve as a contradictory example of manipulating the austerity state to include funding community organizing. Without connection to political victories and effective grassroots organizing, the COP remained, like the most prevalent types of training in the US in and outside of social work, a moderated form of democratization and an extension of the neoliberal austerity state, intentionally or not. The voices heard here working in the field demanded a more politicized form of training. This contribution emphasizes voices from the field regarding three aspects: the limited and problematic training content in the COP, the moderated community organizing education which fit with contemporary trends in community organizing in the US, and the surprising political sophistication of those interviewed who understood the highly critical need of more effective training to help address our extraordinary contemporary challenges.

KEYWORDS:

• Community organizing
• macro social work education
• austerity
• politicized activism
• democratize funding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Connecticut Sabbatical Leave 2014–2015; University of Connecticut Social Work Dean’s Research Award 2014; Visiting Scholar Moray House School of Education University of Edinburgh Scotland 2014; Fulbright-Hays Scholar American Studies University of Innsbruck Austria 2015.