Home Two The politics of deploying community
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Two The politics of deploying community

  • Janet Newman and John Clarke
View more publications by Policy Press

Abstract

This chapter offers an analysis of the very different political projects that mobilise ideas and practices of community development. However, it argues, such projects do not exist in any pure form but are subject to two crucial political processes. The chapter shows how ideas and practices of community development move across national and/or institutional boundaries, and are interpreted by mediating actors – including, but not only, community workers themselves (the politics of translation). It goes on to trace how some of the many possible meanings of ‘community’ and ‘development’ are selectively mobilised and articulated with other political concepts in ways that shape their meaning and that open – or close – political possibilities (the politics of articulation). Processes of articulation are never closed and complete, and the chapter shows how actors ’work the spaces’ of hegemonic projects to pursue alternative goals of development and democratization.

Abstract

This chapter offers an analysis of the very different political projects that mobilise ideas and practices of community development. However, it argues, such projects do not exist in any pure form but are subject to two crucial political processes. The chapter shows how ideas and practices of community development move across national and/or institutional boundaries, and are interpreted by mediating actors – including, but not only, community workers themselves (the politics of translation). It goes on to trace how some of the many possible meanings of ‘community’ and ‘development’ are selectively mobilised and articulated with other political concepts in ways that shape their meaning and that open – or close – political possibilities (the politics of articulation). Processes of articulation are never closed and complete, and the chapter shows how actors ’work the spaces’ of hegemonic projects to pursue alternative goals of development and democratization.

Downloaded on 22.10.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.56687/9781447317388-005/html
Scroll to top button