Community Building

8 Strengthening Communities through Research Partnerships for Social Change Perspectives from the Institute for Community Research

In constant dynamic flux, communities rebuild and redefine themselves without the benefit of social science consultation. Despite community-level agency, however, larger processes of social change— migration, innovation, renovation, gentrification, renewal, rebuilding— are not always transparent to individuals or to communities (Cowley and Billings 1999; Denner et al. 2001; Stevenson 1998). Furthermore, when national systems are in rapid transition, governmental and external interests step up the process of reframing information and redefining “communities” to meet the demands and constraints of national and international priorities (for example, welfare reform regulations and policies guiding the demise of public housing in the United States). Some communities, such as those in exile, face sudden cultural transitions and extreme cultural losses. To redefine themselves, they struggle to reshape their own national and cultural identities (Williamson et al. 1999). Others confront the suffering associated with potential demise and reconstruction: for example, communities that have experienced natural disasters or the psychological and physical destruction of repeated wars; ethnic, class, race, or religion-based 191 8 Strengthening Communities through Research Partnerships for Social Change Perspectives from the Institute for Community Research Jean J. Schensul 191 genocide; and other forms of social violence (Kleinman, Das, and Locke, eds., 1997). Communities not privileged with information on how global or national economic and social policies may be affecting them are forced into reactive rather than proactive positions. Socially and informationally marginalized communities may seek all the tools necessary to express agency but may have no access to them (Flint 2003; Rankin 2003). By agency, we refer to a community’s identification of needs and sociogeographic and cultural boundaries, as well as its defense of identity in place and space. Agency also means the capacity for authentic representation to the public and the ability to assert and negotiate plans for the future (Baker and Brownson 1998; Barnsley and Ellis 1992; Brydon-Miller 1997; Gaventa 1991, 1993; and Steckler et al. 1993). The field of anthropology is rooted in research based in local communities —the contexts within which individuals and families live their everyday lives. Most anthropologists work at the interface of changing local communities and national and international systems (Simonelli 2003). It makes sense, therefore, to ask how research conducted by anthropologists and other social scientists can not only describe local community capacity to promote and sustain community, but also strengthen it. How can our research improve the survival of families and individuals, the growth of their communities and quality of life, and their social, cultural, and economic well-being? (See Hyland and Bennett, introduction to this volume; Brown and Tandon 1983.) Even though anthropologists work in communities, they have generally not used the words “community building” to conceptualize their work. There is a considerable literature on community development (see van Willigen, chapter 2 of this volume). There is also a growing public health and community psychology literature on participatory action research (PAR) generally directed toward individual and community - or organizational-level change (Minkler 1997; Minkler and Wallerstein 2003). Some of the earlier work of Stephen Schensul (1974), Barger and Reza (1989), and a handful of other anthropologists working in partnership with immigrant, exiled, or impoverished communities (Arcury, Quandt, and McCauley 2000; van Willigen, Rylko-Bauer, and McElroy, eds., 1989; van Willigen 2002) comes close to the notion of community building (S. L. Schensul and J. J. Schensul Jean J. Schensul 192 1978; S. L. Schensul and Borrero 1982). This tradition, sometimes referred to as “advocacy anthropology,” involves the use of research and intervention methods to create and render operational new community institutions framed around ethnic/cultural identity. Meeting residents’ material and social needs and addressing social injustice stemming from inequitable resource distribution and discrimination are also goals. For the most part, however, anthropologists have been less concerned with theories of community building (Minkler and Wallerstein 1997; Stafford 2001) and more interested in local communities (places) as locations where problem-oriented research and practice are conducted (see Cook and Taylor, eds., 2001; McElroy et al. 2003). Community building entered the social vocabulary of American social scientists, policy makers, and social change agents with the Ford Foundation’s funding of community development corporations in the 1960s. As US government policy shifted in the 1980s, more private foundations stepped in to replace lost public-sector service. Their approach emphasized privatization of services through the nonprofit sector and improved interagency coordination of services. Foundations gave more...