A guest blog post by Peter Westoby (The University of Queensland, Australia)
To be clear about my position, alluding to Ian Hyslop’s recent blog on social work, there’s no ‘essence’ of community development, no community development ‘as a thing’. There are diverse theories and practices that co-exist in tension with one another, producing specific types of practice in different contexts. Community development can be oriented in conservative, pluralist and radical directions (Gilchrist, 2004). I will argue for a radical orientation.