Introduction

In its broadest sense, community development practice can be understood as a way of empowering people in disadvantaged communities to act together for the purpose of influencing and exerting greater control over decisions that affect their lives (Craig, 1998: 15; Taylor, 2003: 3; Mayo, 2005: 101; Ife, 2010: 67; Gilchrist and Taylor, 2011: 3; Kenny, 2011: 8). Given this definition, it may appear that the roles expected of those who practise community development are relatively straightforward. They involve agents intervening in disadvantaged communities to assist members to identify their needs, goals and assets and to help in developing the knowledge, skills, confidence and resources to give them more control over their future. However, approaches to community development vary considerably. For example, roles differ according to whether community development is seen primarily as a process aimed at improving community welfare, as an activist endeavour or as a professional practice (although of course they overlap in particular contexts and settings). In any case, as socio-political contexts change, so do the policy and theoretical frameworks which set out the rationales for community development intervention.

This chapter begins by illustrating how community development roles can vary, through a discussion of potential distinctions between ‘facilitation’ and ‘leadership’ practices, and between ‘external’ practitioners and ‘organic’ practitioners. The chapter proceeds to a consideration of some of the complexities arising from different understandings of ‘empowering communities’, drawing on visions of community as object, subject and site of community development. While community development has always been a complex and contested field (Craig, 2007; Mayo, 2008: 13), today there are some quite distinct contexts and socio-political considerations, which pose new challenges for practice. Thus, the second part of the chapter explores ways in which emerging conditions and new ways of thinking, particularly those ideas associated with the concept of cosmopolitanism, might open up new possibilities for reframing significant aspects of community development practice, and reconfiguring community development roles.

Negotiating tensions between facilitation and leadership roles

Traditionally, a core theme in community development revolves around its commitment to recognising the agency and political legitimacy of disadvantaged and marginalised communities.