Concept (E-Journal)
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What have I become?
Full text linkThis morning, I refused to hold the heavy front door for a frail neighbour who was struggling to open it. In fact, I walked away from him and let him carry on unaided. When I check Facebook, I tut tut at my friends for drinking too much and frown at their photos of 50 mile cycles. Not sure that’s really what we’re supposed to be doing! On my walk, I swerve to avoid coming within 6 metres of a fellow pedestrian, who is already observing the 2 metres’ distance.Unhelpful, judgemental, afraid of the physical presence of other human beings. Is this what I’ve become?I announced I was working from home on 12 March, well before the official lock down on 23 March. I went into the office to grab stationary and personal belongings on the 13th and stuck a notice up saying we were temporarily shut and giving my contact details. I forgot to clear out the fridge and I left our beloved spider plant to fend for itself in the fusty air of the overheated room. I suppose I thought it would only be three weeks. Like a longer than usual Christmas break. I don’t really remember - who knows what I was thinking back then
How to help the \u27vulnerable\u27
Full text linkThis article is based on a Facebook post written in the context of the nationwide appeal for volunteers to support vulnerable people in the community.People, can I just offer a word of caution! Firstly, let me say that I am very much one of the \u27vulnerable\u27: disabled from birth and had more than my share of loss of independence due to fighting a rear-guard action against all my health issues.My word of caution is not to stop all this wonderful community-minded thinking and action. Many people are putting into action what we would all hope is our core society ethos. My plea is on the basis that this is going to be a long haul by all accounts - the peak, we are told, may not be until June. So, those offering help right now may want to keep in mind that this is likely to be a time-commitment of months, if not longer. The up side to this is that we may forge real friendships and get to know people properly. The down side is that right now many people like me will be fine, and so will refuse or turn down offers of help. We are not ungrateful or rude (well maybe I am a bit grumpy), it is just that we are used to fending for ourselves and, to some extent, doing it ourselves
Out of the Wreckage
Full text linkAlex Callaghan is a community worker whose writing engages with socio-political issues and advocates for progressive change.
You can’t take away someone’s story without giving them a new one - progressive visions exist, yet side-lined, latent in the doldrums The drum beat of mainstream media readily unfurls humdrum morbid melodies, après nous, le déluge, a tedious mantra played out repeatedly Machiavellian malevolence blatantly roaring into living rooms, linguistics cunningly orchestrated by the likes of the Murdoch mob under the banner Fox Gloomy blurry auras fuel orthodoxy stating eco degradation is obfuscatio
Community Development and the ‘Austerity Decade’ (2010-19)
Full text linkLocal government in Scotland and across the UK was transformed in the last decade by an economic policy shaped by austerity, resulting in the biggest cuts to local authority spending seen in a generation. In this context, community development as an ‘approach to working’ in local government has found itself embroiled in new forms of work designed to reduce public expenditure. In the main, this work has centred on the outsourcing and asset transfer of public goods and services to new (and cheaper) community-based providers. This article explores how community development’s involvement with outsourcing and asset transfer has transformed the \u27competencies\u27 required of practitioners, and changed their relations on the ground with communities. The article argues that, despite the progressive rhetoric which is associated with outsourcing and asset transfer - ‘community empowerment’, ‘co-production’, ‘self-help’ and so forth - the real agenda has been shaped by austerity and managing the fiscal crisis of the state.
 
Anne Harley and Eurig Scandrett (eds) (5th June 2019 Environmental Justice, Popular Struggle and Community Development
Full text linkThe book is a very extensive collection of richly informative experiences of career activists, academics and academic activists. Besides the wide variety and extensive range of the nature of issues covered in the book, it captures experiences of actors (activists, academics and academic activists) from across the globe. Consequently, in my opinion, there is something for anyone interested in the subject of environmentalism, environmental justice and popular struggle, irrespective of ethnic background.
 
What a time to be working for a drugs harm reduction agency!
Full text linkLike other voluntary or third sector organisations Crew (officially Crew 2000) are working furiously to try and make sense of what this new situation around Covid-19 means. We know how quickly drug trends can change under normal circumstances and how people’s mental health is inextricably connected to how, when, where and why drugs are taken. Our ability to critically assess what is happening for people right now, and where we are as an organisation, has never been more important.We need to know what is happening for people we support and what their continuing, changing or emerging needs are; what services we can provide and which need to change; how we work flexibly to meet these shifting times while minding the needs of our colleagues and ourselves, all of us dealing with our new specific set of challenges, We need to use our knowledge to consider potential fluctuations to supply, and changes in demand, as people are faced with a myriad of triggers and anxieties
Marjorie Mayo, (2020) Community- Based Learning and Social Movements: Popular Education in a Populist Age
Full text linkI recommend this book to adult educators, academics, community professionals and students interested in making connections between community-based learning, popular education, participatory action research, social movements and community-university partnerships, with an interest in challenging right-wing populism and social injustice. The book is a resource providing hope to such educators working against an upsurge in populist governments and movements that have given rise to xenophobia and nativism
James S Fishkin (21st June 2018) Democracy When the People are Thinking: Revitalising our Politics through Public Deliberation
Full text linkThe UK has been subjected to years of political uncertainty and turmoil as a consequence of the majority public decision to leave the European Union in the 2016 Referendum. ‘Brexit’ is described by politicians as ‘the will of the people[i].’ It would, politicians argue, undermine democracy not to deliver this decision. Do we really know the will of the people, however, when the public is subject to hugely expensive campaigns of persuasion which promote false information and are funded by individuals who have an interest in the outcome of the vote; when they are denied access to robustly-researched, accurate information; and when a fully representative public have not properly deliberated the reasons for and against the competing alternatives in conditions which ensure everyone’s views can be meaningfully expressed and equally counted?
[i] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/election-2017-40140983/may-delivering-on-will-of-the-peopl
A virus created radical moment: Not to be missed?
Full text linkI\u27m sitting in splendid isolation on a lush hillside above a Cretan village, where even the patriarchal kafeneio is closed. Outside its shuttered face a group of old men sit, less than socially distant, defying spasmodic police surveillance. A few kilometres away people queue obediently outside the supermarket, clutching in their plastic gloved hands the required Out-of-Home pass and their ID. There are health concerns, even though the island of 650,000 souls has precious few Covid-19 cases and only one death, but such melancholia is hardly new. Crete is awash with chemists, testing one\u27s blood pressure a daily routine. Notwithstanding the benefits of the Mediterranean diet it’s tempting to note that Hippocrates hailed from hereabouts and that hypochondria stems from Ancient Greek. There is real fear, though not so much of the virus per se but of what lies ahead. As I write the island is closed for business. The tourism-oiled life blood of the local economy congeals. With cafes, tavernas, hotels, even beaches, empty of purpose, unemployment and debt soars. The Orthrus-headed threat of poverty and hunger hangs in the air. The questions on everybody\u27s lips are \u27when will this end?\u27 and ‘will we, do we, want to return to normal?\u27 At this moment, if assuredly we are not all in this together, from capitalist to peasant, humanity faces a fragile future
A response to Vol. 11, Supplementary Issue, 2020
Full text linkThis special issue is really important in reminding us, as Mae Shaw points out, that we are far from being ‘all in this together’. Government statistics clearly demonstrate that Covid-19 has a much greater impact on people living in poverty. For example, the Office for National Statistics has revealed that there were 55 deaths for every 100,000 people in the poorest parts of England, compared with 25 in the wealthiest areas, and the National Records of Scotland show that Inverclyde, at the top of the Scottish index of Multiple Deprivation, has the highest death rate in Scotland from the virus