This book defines the current identity of community studies, provides a critical but reliable introduction to its key concepts, and is an engaging guide to the key social research methods used by community researchers and practitioners.
Concise but clear, it caters for the needs of those interested in community studies by offering cross-referenced, accessible overviews of the key theoretical issues that have the most influence on community studies today.
It incorporates all of the important frames of reference including those which are:
Theoretical; Research focused; Practice and policy oriented; Political; Concerned about the place of community in everyday life
The extensive bibliographies and up-to-date guides to further reading reinforce the aim of the book to provide an invaluable learning resource.
Interdisciplinary in approach and inventive in its range of applications this book will be of value to students studying sociology, social policy, politics and community development.
Like many other concepts in community studies, ‘community action’ is a broad term that has various meanings depending on who is using it. Insofar as there is a commonly accepted formulation, it is used to describe the organization of direct, often localized, collective action, which sets out to achieve change through organization, mobilization and negotiation, in ways that can be both unconventional and unconstitutional. To this extent, community action can also be identified with four kinds of power relations with extant institutions and/or other forms of authority: conflict, co-operation, confrontation and change. What all of this suggests, not surprisingly, is that community action is a political process that presumes an active view of the participative citizen.
Section Outline: This chapter begins by distinguishing organic ...