Dialogical Community Development

by Peter Westoby, Gerard Dowling

Community development has been increasingly influenced and co-opted by a modernist, soulless, rational philosophy, which has reduced it to a shallow technique for 'solving community problems' and threatens the very legitimacy of community development as an instrument of society's renewal and fulfilment. Dialogical Community Development is a courageous, ground-breaking attempt to re-draw the parameters and re-map the ground of community development practice. By re-imagining community as dialogue and hospitality, the authors create an alternative vision of community development a deep, soulful exercise that demands a re-examination of personal values, and a respect for and solidarity with the groups within the community. In a series of conversations on transformative community processes, challenges for practitioners, and practical care for the multiple dimensions of community life, the authors set out the details of this vision. Highly recommended for students, scholars, policy makers, activists, and anyone who is interested in bringing more life and collaborative movement into their ways of engaging with community.

234 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

Reviews

[Drick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book I have read integrating Freire's concept of dialogue with community development. The authors are based in Australia and relate their experience in community development there and around the world to the dialogical approach to education proposed by Freire. In essence for them, community development is about relationship building and working in solidarity with, rather than doing for poor and marginalized people. Also, the authors talk about doing this work with soul, that it is a vocation, a calling not a career. We are invited to share in the struggle, even despair of the most vulnerable and oppressed in our communities and in so doing transform communities as we transform lives, especially our own. The book is chocked full of practical insights, which make it a text I will go back to again and again, as I seek to be a person who walks with the poor in all my work and endeavors.