https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1758-0366
Although marked by a profound sense of loss, it nonetheless feels appropriate that this issue of the journal contains a review of what sadly proved to be Patsy Healey’s final book. As Steve Connelly explains, it provides a characteristically rich account of Patsy’s work in her local community of Wooler in Northumberland. Speaking as it does to the insightful ways Patsy continued grappling with the challenges of combining theory and practice long into her retirement, it is testament to the profound influence her scholarship will continue to have in our field.
On her ‘retirement,’ Patsy Healey stepped out of academia into what she came to see as the “much richer and more varied world” (p. xii) of community governance, as a resident and activist in the rural community of Glendale, centred on the small market town of Wooler, located some 75 km from Newcastle and its university. Fortunately for those of us left behind, she then combined her academic and practitioner understanding of the subsequent decade in this reflective and original book. It is unusual in many ways: her positionality; the duration of the study, enabled by her status as resident rather than visiting outsider; and the rural, peripheral nature of the place itself. Such places are neglected in our field, relegated to a considerable extent to other sub-disciplines such as rural sociology in favour of ‘the urban,’ as witnessed by the names academic planners give their research centres – Healey’s Global Urban Research Unit being a case in point. Yet there is much to be learned from them, particularly where there is a ferment of activity as some communities struggle to sustain themselves and flourish, in the face of the often malign forces of a distant state and pervasive capitalist development.
Healey had twin purposes for the book: to present a way of analysing “the complexity of micro-social dynamics” (p. xii) of governance, drawing on a wide range of scholarship but always underpinned by her own social institutionalist perspective, and through this to support those searching for “ways to contribute to the future” (p. xii). As ever, there is a strong normative element in her work: the analysis is to serve the purpose of furthering progressive governance through the positive power of self-organising communities. She does this through showcasing the achievements and struggles of real people, in an extended single case study which (like the best of such studies) sets out both the micro-detail and how this links to macro-structures and processes. Despite the rather misleading subtitle, this is not ‘community development’ in its usual sense of a familiar set of practices, but a book about the development of a community, and an honest evaluation of its achievements.
This book is personally timely, as I leave academia for (semi-)retirement and move to a ‘peripheral’ rural community, not so far from Healey’s Glendale. Already I see the parallels in the surprising (to an urban dweller) complexity of community infrastructure, the importance of the small-scale, informal personal networks and the bustle of small-scale enterprise and non-political community activity. Common too are the economic decline of small rural market towns, and the crashing together of local struggles for sustainable development with the powerful forces of corporate interests in land – the great estates, the energy companies, new stakeholders interested in carbon offsetting – overlaid with the buying power of incomers seeking quality of life and second homes. So, I read the book with a degree of self-interest: could Patsy provide me with some hope for another community seeking a “collective co-existent future-in-place” (p. 188), and perhaps with a guide to my own practice over the coming years?
Throughout, real examples are given pride of place, often as extended vignettes at the start of chapters. The first few chapters set out the nature of the area and local activism, highlighting three community-based initiatives in particular, alongside interrogating what it actually means to be a ‘community,’ or a ‘place.’ The fifth sets these in their broader context within the regional ‘governance ecosystem,’ what Healey calls the ‘agency world,’ with Chapter Six turning to the more overtly political issue of power relations at every scale. This is perhaps the most explicitly theoretical chapter, providing innovative tools for analysing power dynamics, and grounding these in an understanding of the relationship of agency and structural forces which draws on Giddens’ structuration approach. It also takes a hard look at whether the rather diffuse and complex local ‘place-community’ constitutes a political community, expressed through some kind of legitimate collective entity, but also questions whether such an entity would actually be desirable. This reflects a recurring theme in the book: the value of the diffuseness, fluidity, plurality and informality of the local, as opposed to the rigidity of the agency world with which it has to engage and contend. The next chapter complements the examination of power by turning to the importance of discursive, ideational elements in shaping possibilities for progressive action. The final chapters draw all this material together, firstly (Chapter Eight) by evaluating the impact of the community activism in terms of created ‘public value,’ and finally in Chapter Nine directly addressing the book’s underpinning questions: what is the power of place-community to generate shared concerns and activism?; what (progressive) norms of collective action can be generated to support such activism?; and what is their progressive impact, materially, socially, and in terms of creating a basis for a better future? Across all three questions, Healey’s conclusions are cautiously positive, slightly hesitant in tone, conceding the fragility of achievement and the potential for destructive internal conflict. Until, that is, the rousing conclusions in the final pages: individual acts and beliefs lie at the core of progressive action, and “micro-collective activism focused on where we live … bears a transformative potential” (p. 196).
Throughout Healey mainly wears her scholarship lightly, skilfully weaving together theory and empirical material, always foregrounding the latter and using the former to illuminate and explain: this is not (thankfully) a heavy planning or governance theory book. But the theory is there, nevertheless. This is fine, middle-ground theory building, setting out a sophisticated account of civic activism. This has clear links back into Healey’s earlier work but, to my eyes at least, is more realistic in its view of what is possible and the importance of the contingent. It will provide, I am sure, tools and provocations for future researchers and activists, whether rural or urban.
There were, however, linked and frustrating absences for me, which to some extent diminish the book’s usefulness as a guide to analysis and action. The first is a detailed account of processes. The links between the more abstract material, the details of the organisational and institutional situation, and the outcomes were more tenuous and less explicit than would have been helpful. If we are to understand these micro-processes of creating mutual trust (and its opposite), of negotiating the balance between co-option and side-lining as community organisations and agencies engage, and so on, then we need to know more about what actually happened, warts and all. Healey’s optimism and relative lack of interest in the ‘dark side’ of governance have run through her work for years, and this book is very much in that vein. While there are brief descriptions here of significant conflicts, the diverging interests of those involved and some honest accounts of personal mistakes, there is little here of the enduring struggles familiar to anyone who has been an activist (but sadly lacking in the literature): with selfishness, narrowness of vision, incompetence, dysfunctional organisations and lost opportunities, and the fierce battles between people who want to do good, but disagree viscerally over how this should be done. Yet these are also important parts of any realistic (i.e. helpful) analysis and explanation for how community organisation might (or might not) achieve its goals. Another almost-absence is the Professor herself. She must have been a wonderful resource within the community, though not – by her own account – entirely unproblematic. Reading between the lines, one senses a more significant role in making things happen than is clearly presented here.
While some of these absences may arise from Healey’s longstanding theoretical and normative stance, they were also, I think, inevitable, arising from a dilemma which runs through the whole idea of a book like this. On the one hand, here is a reflective practitioner with a wealth of analytical skills, with unparalleled, long-term, intimate access to a case, which if presented in its entirety would hold rich lessons for those trying to understand, and act, in other places. On the other hand are constraints which make such an insider account all but impossible. By virtue of being a resident-activist as well as emeritus professor, there are clearly ethical issues which limit what can be said about living people and their relationships, as well as personal issues to be negotiated by an author who wished to remain part of the Glendale community.
It would be interesting to know if Healey was also frustrated by these necessary lacunae. Would she have liked to have written more about the nitty-gritty of process and the conflicts, but felt unable to? Or perhaps not: the focus on the positive is the big message of the book. Or perhaps Glendale was remarkably lucky and non-conflictual. We can’t know, for very valid reasons, but the absences do detract from the book’s effectiveness. One of the strengths of the book as a whole is the recognition of complexity, the need to somehow negotiate a rather ill-defined and shifting middle ground amongst all the tensions, and to take risks and make mistakes. The frustration comes because the potentially very revealing examples are not followed through, except in the broadest terms.
Overall this is a good, rich read. It is admirably detailed and bears a nuanced yet hopeful message, which should both inspire engagement and intellectually support civic activism by showing how to understand complexity and evaluate what is going on. It thus fulfils both Healey’s purposes, and hopefully will reach both her intended audiences – those interested and active at local level, and those crafting the responses of the agency world to such activism. It definitely has a place on my post-academia bookshelf.
Freelance consultant, UK
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