Dear Community Development Readers,
I hope you enjoy this collection of works featured in the first issue of 2022. My indebtedness continues to our managing editor, Dr. Sofia Kotsiri. I offer thanks to our associate editors: Drs. Brien Ashdown, Bryan Hains, Kristina Hains, and Matthew Mars. This collection contains seven high-quality articles enhancing community development theory, policy, education, and practice. I thank the reviewers of these pieces for their thoroughness and timeliness during their reviews.
A few common themes of this collection include a strong focus on ethical standards and inclusivity in community development (CD) work. First, Amauchi and colleagues provide readers with an exploration of effective and ethical standards for Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). As an editorial team, we welcome more articles that incorporate CBPR and can provide recommendations for articles to check out in Community Development as well as other journals relevant to the field. Second, Abresch and colleagues undertook a mixed methods study of ten collective impact initiatives, a popular topic in our journal. Importantly, the authors question, “Who gets included in collective impact?” They offer insights regarding distinctly different forms of inclusivity in CD work: broad inclusivity and representative inclusivity. We aim to include more articles of these types as well as leverage these articles as we evaluate the merits and integrity of future manuscripts in our journal.
This collection features two articles focused on building understandings in the CD literature around social capital. Tucker and Gearhart connect social ties and collective efficacy to volunteering, a necessary component across CD work. Halstead, Deller, and Leyden offer an essay challenging the very foundations of social capital in CD research. Importantly, they note that social capital should not be seen as simply a piece of the community capital, and they use the law of the minimum to enhance community capitals theory.
Our final three articles provide insights to the governance and management of CD projects. In San José, California, Prado and colleagues analyze a case study of an underserved community. They measure the impacts of a community leadership program focused on enhancing confidence to participate in local governance. Next, Suh, Auberson, and Ede offer lessons on community-building from their connected backyard gardening scheme in Adelaide, Australia. The article includes insights regarding sharing, circular, and platform economies and how collective residential gardening may be incorporated into city planning. Finally, Ziem Bonye, Yenglier Yiridomoh, and Der Bebelleh discuss common-pool resources in rural Ghana. In particular, they focus on management and governance of community irrigation schemes providing insights for future research, policy, and practice.
Readers will find that this compendium mirrors the best of CD, as scholars, educators, and professionals in the field continue to aim to bridge theory with informed, ethical, and inclusive practice. We look forward to future publications and submissions of this breadth and depth.