Practice Insights Issue 21: Culture and Community Development

"Communities exist and thrive because of the anchor provided to them by culturally defined values, roles, customs, traditions, beliefs that are systematically enforced by families and communities."

There is growing awareness that culture is an essential element of development in families, communities, and countries. Culture is a multi-dimensional, dynamic, shared, and learned system of perspectives, roles, and values that links and sustains members of a group. This special edition of Practice Insights, a bi-annual magazine for community development practitioners, is a celebration of the central place of culture in community development discourse and practice. Community development supports collective and community-driven actions to promote change related to community challenges and priorities.

As outlined in the opening editorial, strong community engagement is required to bring about community-led change, and experience shows that community involvement is greater when programmes reflect the cultural specificities, values, roles, and resources of local contexts. Consequently, the nexus between culture and community development is increasingly of interest to the community development worlds of academia and practice. 

For this special issue, to support the design of culturally-grounded community development initiatives, its editors provide a framework that includes key aspects of culture that contribute to the wellbeing and development of any society. In the conceptual framework (see page 3 of the publication), key aspects of culture include not only people's worldview, ideologies, and values but also the structure, roles, and dynamics within both family and community systems. This framework could be used, first, to orient initial analyses or research in specific contexts and, second, to design and to support the realisation of community development strategies that are culturally grounded. 

The edition's contents are as follows:

Section 1 focuses on key conceptual issues that anchor the discussion on culture and community development. It includes:

• "A Change through Culture Approach to Community Development", by Mamadou Coulibaly
• "Critical Reflection on the Faith in Community Project", by Jim Robertson
• "Care Is a Societal Issue - Case of the Butterfly Garden", by Bob Rhodes and Chris Brown
• "Changing Cultural Patterns: Impact of Older Adults' Participation in Community Development", by Adekola Oluwafunmilayo Theresa and Ewumi Lizzy

Section 2 focuses on arts and media, key components of culture, and their place in community development.

• "Community Radio", by Rob Watson and Russell Todd
• "Building Sense of Community and Community Economic Revitalisation through Multicultural Festivals in Northern Nigeria", by Muhammad Bello Shitu

Section 3 focuses on engendering culture and community development.

• "The Role of Older Women in Promoting the Culture and Development of Families and Communities in Ghana", by Maurice Ocquaye
• "Bride Trafficking in Northern India: Community Development as the Panacea", by Savithri Subramanian

Section 4 centres on culture and community empowerment.

• "Case of Soleil de L'Ouest, Le Morne - 'Stronger Family; Stronger Community'" by Priscilla Ravaton and Vashinta Veeran
• "The Indigenous Community-led Business Model", by Naumai Taurua
• "The Place for Unspoken Cultural Voices in Implementing Water Resources Projects with Communities in Kenya", by Elizabeth Diego

In short, in the words of the editors: "[A]ll the articles in this edition share a common thread while addressing a variety of issues, or problems faced by communities - that culture is at the centre of responding to community wide concerns. In all cases, culturally-based solutions have been developed to address specific economic and social issues. Community development as a discipline and practice is clearly richer when the culture of communities is cultivated not just as an anchor, but also as a beacon of hope."

This publication was produced by the International Association for Community Development (IACD), which is a global network for professional community development practitioners. IACD fosters shared understanding of community development as a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality, and social justice through the organisation, education, and empowerment of people within their communities - whether these be of locality, identity, or interest, in urban and rural settings around the world.