Full Description
Community development is routinely invoked as a practical solution to tackle a myriad of social problems, even though there is little consensus about its meaning and purpose.
Through a comparative analysis of competing perspectives on community development since 1968, this book critically examines the contradictory ideas and practices that have shaped this field in the US and the UK. This approach exposes a problematic politics that have far-reaching consequences for those committed to working for social justice.
This accessible book offers an alternative model for thinking about the politics of community development and so will appeal to academics, postgraduate students and community development workers.
Contents
What are the Micropolitics of Community Development?;
Community Development in a Post-Civil Rights America;
When Technocracy Met Marxism: The Community Development Projects in Britain;
Community Development and the Rise of the American New Right;
From Radicalism to Realism: Rethinking Community Development in a Post-Marxist Britain;
Commodifying Community: American Community Development and Neoliberal Hegemony;
Privatising Public Life: Neoliberalism and the Dilemmas of British Community Development;
Between Economic Crisis and Austerity: What Next for Community Development in Britain and America?;
Bibliography.
