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Community development and the British Empire
| From Greg Smith's Community and Communitarianism |
The British Empire like many others before it, found it wise to rule its vast domains with a degree of local consent, and was therefore keen to co-opt local power structures into the mainstream.
Anthropologists, schoolteachers and missionaries played a role alongside soldiers and merchants in the business of Empire. As colonies moved through to independence the watchword was political and economic modernisation. Agricultural extension officers in remote villages, health education workers and many other professionals developed techniques which were recognizably those of community development.
Non-governmental aid and development agencies (NGOs) such as Oxfam, Save the Children and Christian Aid soon discovered that community participation was vital to the success of their programmes. Slogans such as "give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach him to fish you feed him for life" became popular.
Local ownership of projects, cultural sensitivity, drawing on local skills, knowledge and wisdom were found to be important in developing sustainable agriculture and industry, while imported Western expertise was seen to fail. Non-directive leadership, listening to people identifying their own needs and encouraging them to co-operative and creative action were found to be more effective strategies.
Lessons learned overseas have been applied by community developers in Europe and North America, though obviously some adaptations are needed. In some cases community development sponsored by the State in deprived neighbourhoods can be perceived as manipulation, and it is tempting to apply the notion of internal colonialism to describe what is going on as local groups are subtly co-opted to the agendas of the powerful.
An extract from chapter 2 of Greg Smith's Community and Communitarianism: concepts and contexts, 1996. The full text is available online at
Community and Communitarianism.
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