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‘Community development’ as a buzz-word

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Oxfam GB

'Community Development' as a Buzz-Word

Author(s): Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane
Source: Development in Practice, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 2009), pp. 136-147
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Oxfam GB
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 11 Routledge
Development inPractice, Volume 19, Number 2, April 2009 |\ ^ranmCro:.
Taylor

'Community development'
as a buzz-word

Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane

This article examines the semantic evolution of the term 'communitydevelopment' (CD) in the
latterhalf of the twentiethcentury. It is argued thatCD has acquired differentmeanings, theor
etical grounding, and practical applications, startingfrom a focus on traditional societies up to
the 1960s, moving to a focus on social and/or civil-rights movements up to the 1980s, and
further to a focus on themodern middle class from the 1990s. The thrustof the argument is
that the concept is not cohesive and unified but represents a repertoire of meanings which
include many shades of CD thatare not necessarily mutually compatible but reflectparticular
political and social practices in the contexts inwhich theyoccur.

Key Words: Civil society; Methods

We mistake for postponement of the Thing itself what is already the Thing itself,' we
mistake for the searching and indecision proper to desire what is, infact, the realisation
of the desire. That is to say, the realisation of the desire does not consist in its being
fulfilled,' 'fully satisfied,' it coincides rather with the reproduction of desire as such,
with its circular movement. (Zizek 1991: 7)

Zizek's observation has considerable resonance with the shiftingmeaning of community

development. Community development (CD) emerged as a buzz-word in the 1960s, to
become 'self-help' and 'people power' in the 1970s, 'community participation' in the 1980s,
and 'local economic development' in the 1990s. As a catchphrase, together with its sister
variations such as grassroots community work, community action, etc., it has
development,
become littlemore than a rhetorical gesture (Sihlongonyane 2001), a slippery concept (Little
2002), a dynamic experience (Zimmerman 1995), and a mutating set ofmetaphors thatmean
different things to different people (Arnstein 1971; Brager and Specht 1973; Rifkin 1996).
Bell and Newby (1971) observe that there is a paradox indefining the community, and by exten
sion community development, in that 'as soon as one tries to do so, itceases to have a veritable
existence'. Smith (1996: 250) remarks, 'Of all thewords in sociological discourse, community
is the one thatmost obviously comes fromwonderland, in that itcan mean just what you want'.
This article examines the evolution of this concept inDevelopment Studies in the latterhalf
of the twentieth century. It argues that the language of community development (CD) has
evolved within different social formations (i.e. traditional societies up to the 1960s, social

136 ISSN 0961-4524 Print/ISSN 1364-9213 Online 020136-12 ? 2009 Oxfam GB

DOl: 10.1080/09614520802689378 Routledge Publishing

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 'Community development' as a buzz-word

and/or civil-rightsmovements up to the 1980s, and themodern middle class from the 1990s to
date), in order to provide particular meanings that related to seeking specific local development
outcomes. The article first traces the changes in terminology in which popular development
paradigms have affirmed the concept of community development. This is followed by a
discussion of the complexities and implications of the various uses of the concept, both in
theory and in practice. The thrust of the argument is that the concept is not cohesive and
unified but represents a repertoire of meanings which encompass many shades of CD that are
not necessarily mutually compatible but reflect particular political and social practices in the
contexts inwhich they occur.

Community as traditional society

Up to the 1950 and 1960s, therewas a commonsense assumption thatCD as a process of change
was anchored in a geographical area, with a defined identity and a set of common values and
practices. As Stacey (1969: 135) noted, Tn the ideal typical community, the sense of belonging
was said to be associated within the social relations within the particular geographic area'.
In his study of the Philippines, Tinker (1961: 309) observed, 'They [enthusiasts] argued that
the village possessed an untapped asset in its sense of community and solidarity, and they
planned to capitalise this asset by associating the village folk in a combined effort towards
reconstruction and uplift'.
There were threemain characteristics associated with traditional communities: geographical
location, identity,and common interests.The imagined traditional community was associated
with geographical settings in which communities could share resources and common-hood.
Such common-hood was defined by shared moral values, where (within strong families and
through effective parenting) social and civic obligations are learned, and self-reliance,
mutual aid, and volunteering are practised as a constituent form of identity. Identity, in turn,
was viewed as an of common interests, since such communities were associated
expression
with socially cohesive systems, somuch so that theirway of lifewas perceived to be sociologi
cally functional, at least in rhetoric (see Figure 1).
Numerous accounts illustrate the close-knit nature of such communities, often making
casual references to Malinowski's well-known anthropological studies of native societies,
and resonating with films such as Indiana Jones and stories such as Defoe's Robinson
Crusoe. Much development activity that was organised around these imagined traditional
societies was seen through a dual modernist reflection which posited geographical societies
as underdeveloped. Thus Mayo (1975: 130) attributes the notion of CD to effortsby British

Identity:
common
beliefs

Traditional
community

Geographical:
commonvalues Interests:
common
practices

Figure 1. Imagination of the traditional community

Development inPractice, Volume 19, Number 2, April 2009 137

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Mfaniseni Ferna Sihlongonyane

colonial administrators to undertake a civilising mission in the education of the colonies.

Midgley et al (1986: 17) observed that the termwas coined in relation to promoting agriculture,
health, and other social services through local self-help. As such, CD was a state function that
sought to replace a patron-client polity by equal co-operation, and itemphasised the village as
the level at which the bonds of fellowship were realised (Tinker 1961: 313).
The notion of CD, especially for colonial and modernist development planners, therefore
revolved around the ideas of grassroots, village, and rural development. This imagination has
had positive, negative, and sometimes nuanced outcomes. On the positive side, it informed
theNobel Laureate, Dr Y. C. James Yen of the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction
(IIRR) to articulate a credo that is claimed to reflect a people-centred and participatory philos
ophy and practice for rural reconstruction. Cited inCompton 2001, it states:
Go to thepeople
Live among them
Learn from them
Plan with them
Work with them
Start with what theyknow
Build on what theyhave
Teach by showing
Learn by doing
Not a showcase
But a pattern

Not odds and ends but a system

Not to conform but to transform
Not relief but release.

On thenegative side, the alluring ideal of this construct became an organising principle forwide
generalisations, such as those made by theApartheid government to repress black people in
South Africa. The regime used such as 'Indian 'Coloured com
generic categories community',
munity', 'White community', and 'Black community', togetherwith sub-regional designations
such as 'Lebowa 'Swazi etc., to coincide with its labels for ethnic
community', community',
groups. The term community was used with race, ethnic group, nation, or
interchangeably
peoples, to emphasise difference and to justify separate development. Ramphele and Thornton
(1988: 33) indicate that 'among notorious acts of theDepartment of Community Development
was the destruction of District Six in 1965 ... a dense suburban neighbourhood thatbordered
the central business district of Cape Town. The destruction of theneighbourhood in thename of
"community development" broke theweb which held thiscommunity together.' The cruel irony
was that a recognisable community was destroyed in order to accommodate the ideology of
community thatwas promoted by government administrators who were serving theirwhite
constituency.
Inmany circumstances, the image of the traditional community is also used as a euphemistic
device formaking outlandish claims - frequently a means of legitimising (amorphous) identi
ties (to use Castells' (1996) term) commonly promoted by governments and by institutionssuch
as theWorld Bank, in shaping civil society and/or reinforcing theirown domination. In fact,
many institutions and initiatives stress the importance of community in development, from
theHIPC Initiative to theMillennium Development Goals (MDGs). Internationally, themulti
nationals, various governments, and theDevelopment Bank of South Africa (DBSA), as well as
NGOs and civic societies, progressive and conservative, are adopting the same approach. In
many cases, theymake project funding conditional on inclusion of the 'community'. Never

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 'Community development' as a buzz-word

is themandatory reference to the community omitted from project proposals, which donor
agencies also sift to check whether sufficient attention has been paid to the community
(Sihlongonyane 2001).
The World Bank, for example, claims that itsCommunity Driven Development (CDD) treats
poor people and their institutionsas assets and partners in the search for sustainable solutions to
development challenges.1 As far as theBank is concerned, there are communities in every poor
section of society. Such rhetoric is used for lobbying, sentimentalising, and legitimising claims.
It is not uncommon, for example, to talk about an African or Katrina
community, community,
or Tsunami community, orMuslim community to evoke particular feelings. Moreover, these
claims are taken to refer to real communities, irrespective of the reductionism embedded in
the term.Most of these claims of community are outlandish, unfounded, and mere statements
of political correctness - expressions of metaphor. In the process, the community is applied
across all kinds of groupings - whether binding, temporary, or permanent - to the extent
that it can refer as much to bad groups (racists, criminals) as to good ones, while also being
sufficiently loose to allow varying and even opposing interpretations (Sihlongonyane 2001).
An instance of the sentimentality of this rhetoric can be seen in Samuel Huntington's two
books: The Clash of Civilizations (1996) and Who Are We (2004). Writing as a patriot and a
scholar (in that order), Huntington argues in the latter for the protection of English-speaking
America, as some form of community, against the increasing threat posed by immigrants.
Huntington asserts that immigrants, especially those from Mexico, are undermining the
'Anglo-Protestant creed', destroying the shared identity thatmakes them 'American'. For
Huntington, good Americans are Anglo-Protestants. This projects a sharply naive imagination
whereby being American denotes a particular exclusive cultural expression of natural goodness.
Huntington's work typically identifies a mounting threat,such asMexican immigrants, Islamic
civilisation, or democratic proclivities, and then points to the need for strongmeasures to build
national unity and popular mobilisation (including militarisation) in response to the barbarians
who are at the gates, if not already within. Huntington attempts to construct 'purified'
communities thatoperate as devices of exclusion, negotiating difference simply by protecting
theUSA from 'theother'. Etzioni (1996a: 477) critically notes: 'The theme thatruns throughout
various works of Huntington is best characterized as a theory of fear. Such books are
extra-popular because they give license to the expression of silently embraced prejudices by
claiming that theyhave a base in scholarship and even science.'
The same concept was used under the government of 'Tony Bush' in theUK, identifying
some neighbourhoods in the city of Bradford as faith groups who constituted 'a channel to
some of the hardest to reach groups' forwhom they are 'themost suitable organisations to
deliver community objectives' (Cabinet Office 2001). This approach has undoubtedly been
influenced by the violent public conflict that took place in a number of towns and cities in
the north of England during 2001 in which both ethnicity (Pakistani) and religion (Islam)
were implicated, along with class, gender, and generation. Thus, presumably, the goal was to
develop cohesion across ethno-religious boundaries, since arguably much of the conflict in
Bradford, Burnley, and Oldham was a result of too much cohesion within communities, to
the point thatpeople live 'parallel lives', separated residentially and socially by ethnicity and
religion (Cantle 2001; Denham 2001; Ouseley 2001).
One of the outstanding problems in this imagination, as observed in South Africa, is that the
separated (local, regional, etc.) identities are not only contradictory, but are underpinned by
partial and incompatible definitions of scale and boundary. While each constructed identity
may create a psychological base upon which to hinge development processes, the notion of a
community is simply too static to cope with the flows of globalisation and individualisation,
because the very notion retains a Utopian purchase out of the imagination of unity.As Young

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Mfaniseni Ferna Sihlongonyane

(1990: 300) argued, Those motivated by itwill tend to suppress their differences amongst
themselves or implicitly exclude from their political group persons with whom they do not
identify'.Hence, Pratt (1987: 50-51) characterised them as 'imaginary Utopian communities'
that do not represent 'fractured
accurately Reality'.
Itwas noted, for example, that faith groups inBradford could not be identified simply with
locality or neighbourhood. At the city level, people increasingly travelled longer distances to
participate inworship and other activities. They retain a transnational focus, rather than a local
focus, as well as the wider concept of the Ummah (the internationalMuslim brotherhood)
(Furbey and Macey 2003: 15). Kearns and Parkinson (2001) point out that the definition of
neighbourhood (as a traditional society) is therefore problematic, in terms of both spatial
scale and its varying psychological and social significance for residents. They noted that 'there
aremany other sources partly dependent on our individual and collective
time-geographies and
action-spaces within the urban arena'. These and encourage an
developments experiences
understanding that transcends the purely local or parochial and express 'a deeply embedded
transnationalism'.

Community as method
Although this Utopian imagination of the traditional community persists (explicitly and
implicitly) in dominating the thinking of development practitioners, it was eclipsed by
social/civic movements in the late 1960s. This was motivated largely by the surge in the dis
enchantmentwith modernist development. Itwas clear all over theworld thateconomic growth
did not automatically sweep poverty away. Development analysts decided that the second
Development Decade must also include measures deliberately targeted at the poor to help
them to meet their basic needs for food, water, housing, health care, and education. This
shiftof attentionwas given more impetus by Robert McNamara, then President of theWorld
Bank, in his landmark statement proclaiming that governments in developing countries
should design policies thatmeet theneeds of thepoorest 40 per cent. This in turngave momen
tum to the emergence of a deluge of slogans such as 'peoplefirst', 'worstfirst', 'people power',
and 'self-help', which were part of a new/renewed thrust of imagination concerning the
masses.
popular
Its locus of imagination and its construction were idealised in terms of the articulations of
social movements. This marked a significant shift from the concept of the traditional society
as the platform of imagination to a concept of theworking class as the theatre for
forging
new forms of community development. As Lloyd (1984: 14) observed
(especially in the
British context), therewas a distinction between mobilisation from above and mobilisation
from below. 'Formobilization from above, the term community development was used, from
- as an
below, the term community action attempt to cope with reality and an attempt to
change reality'. Community development in the conventional sense involved a relationship
with the state (central or local) in which demands were made for services (Curno 1978;
Loney 1983). Castells' influentialwriting (1983), for example, presented government/state
as the enemy of the local community, due to its capitalist policies. Castells (1996: 9) later
noted that this stemmed fromwithout, as people built 'trenches of resistance and survival'
on principles that counter those of dominant institutions.Resistance identitieswere
essentially
defensive and expressed 'the exclusion of the excluders by the excluded'. In 1971, Community
-
Action, a highly successful bi-monthlymagazine, began its chronicling of protest activities
mainly those of tenants' groups in conflict with their landlords, public and private; its
purpose was 'to furtherstimulate such activity' (Lloyd 1984: 13).

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 'Community development' as a buzz-word

In terms ofmethodology, community development was projected as an alternative to state

- a
development platform on which resistance identities were to be created. It became an
approach which encapsulated various rhetorical flourishes such as bottom-up approach,
worst-firstapproach, self-help, social inclusion, participation, respect for diversity, and even
social democracy. Social and civil movements used 'the community' as a rallying slogan
to make claims against capitalism. Community development was an important signifier for
progressive development. It became a major code for development thatwas against capitalist
development, hegemony, and exploitation (Figure 2).
The actual impact of resistance identities on community development was widely varied,
inconsistent, and sometimes but many programmes to emerge, such as
contradictory, began
integrated rural development, rural urbanisation, and agro-politan development (Friedmann
and Weaver 1979). Community development was largely associated with rural development
and poor urban sectors.Multiple communities were now emerging in a myriad struggles and
contests of power, ranging from groups forming around a focus on the environment, gender,
or human rights.Even within groups dedicated to the same struggle, therewere other splinter
groups. For instance, feminism has seen divisions among the radical, liberal, and socialist
tendencies. What began to emerge was the idea that community action was not only based
on reassuring ideas of co-operation and mutuality, but that itwas also divisive, separating
the inside from the outside and producing internal strife between different factions. It
became clear that the claims of unity, voice, and content were but an illusion, or even a delusion.

In particular, the broad generalisations made by Marxist scholars were under fierce attack.
Itwas becoming clear that 'the community' had a strong imaginary and narrative form but a
weak empirical character.

Post-modernists began to challenge the dominance ofMarxian and quantitative approaches to

social history.They saw the community essentially as socially constructed and fragmentary; as
a result, definitions were seen as elusive, even contradictory (Popple 1995: 3). For most post
modernists, community became an illusion or a simulacrum of what once may have been, but is
no more. Bauman (1991: 15), for example, stressed that the post-modern condition means that
we must adapt to 'living at peace with ambivalence'. Like all popular concepts meant to cover a

Gender
Groups

Figure 2. Multiple expressions of the methodological community

Development inPractice, Volume 19,Number 2, April 2009 141

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Mfaniseni Ferna Sihlongonyane

variety of phenomena, it has many meanings. It is used with such facility by a host of
institutions, agents, and movements that it takes on various hues in different contexts
(Sihlongonyane 2001).

Project communities
The radicalism of the late 1960s and 1970s began towane in the 1980s as themacro-economic
policy environment began to shift towards neo-liberal policies. Within the neo-liberal frame
work, the notion of community became closely associated with homo economicus (Rose
1992). This meant thatmany of theMarxist-inspired social and civic movements had to trans
form or replace theirworld-views with market-oriented approaches. As a result, the locus of
community imagination shifted away fromworkers to themiddle class. Within this social for
mation, the visions and agendas of community development are no longer governed by radical
codes ofworkerist thoughts,but by those of themiddle class. Instead of radical, anti-state, go-it
alone workers' for community are now more and
approaches, strategies development co-optive

co-operative, emphasising partnerships, branding, and re-imaging.

The overall thrustof community development has shifted from rural development to urban
development, especially with the reckoning that 'cities are the future of humanity' (UNHCS
2001). Community development now finds renaissance in projects addressing urban regener
ation and social care within the broader scope of local economic development. The so-called
'legacy projects', both in Britain (2012 Olympics) and in South Africa (2010 Soccer World
Cup), are drawing from local histories in thebuilding of stadiums,museums, bridges, galleries,
etc., both in the inner city and elsewhere, as central drivers of community development. World
wide, the 'world class' rhetorichas become a rallying point of such developments. This iswhat
Castells (1996) sees as part of creating Project identities,which involves moving beyond the
defensive to build a new identityand to transform society in themanner of twentieth-century
feminism. Such movements produce social subjects, working together to achieve a different
life.Major emphasis is placed on capacity building (Eade 1997), sustainable livelihoods (see
for instance themany publications of theUK government's Department for InternationalDevel
opment, or the InstituteofDevelopment Studies at theUniversity of Sussex, or the International
Institute of Environment and Development), and security (exemplified by the South African
Regional Poverty Network, SARPN).
Indeed in the 1990s, Romero (1998: 52) defined community as 'an association of individuals
that are sharing and creating ways of interpreting their experiences, that builds a particular
identity connecting individuals and groups reinforcing their common issues without effacing
their differences'. The acknowledgement of differences in project communities suggests that
the community is now a layered concept. Layering also brings to the fore the idea that the
various notions of community are compounded. Thus, depending on various factors, projects
are developed on the basis of a compendium of layeredmeanings. These can be described as
-
constructed, contested, shifting, and non-existent all of them often occurring simultaneously

(Figure 3).
In the 1990s theworks of Robert Putman, Amitai Etzioni, and Leone Sandercock presented
noteworthy social imaginaries for constructing project communities. Putman is famous for
popularising the concept of social capital, in which he sees the community as a form of
social organisation producing mutual benefit for its participants. He envisages CD through
the notion of social capital, which he defines as a 'feature of social life - networks, norms
and trust that enable participants to act togethermore effectively to pursue shared goals'
(Putman 1995: 667). Campfens (1996) notes that the concept of social capital is integral to
most theoristswho see the community as mutually beneficial. In concrete terms, thismeans

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 'Community development' as a buzz-word

co-operation; involvement; social integration; participation by everyone and anyone; commu

nity capacity to identifyneeds, define problems, and pursue courses of action; as well as the
to resources and, where necessary, draw on outside
capacity acknowledge community
resources.

Similarly, the sociologist, Amitai Etzioni (1995) promotes the concept of communitarianism,
a social system which values community more highly than liberal values. He sees social
networks as crucial to the dissemination and maintenance of values. He portrays communities
as 'social webs of people who know one another as persons and have a moral voice'. Members
use these bonds to 'encourage members to abide by shared values ... [and] gently chastise those
who violate sharedmoral norms and express approbation for thosewho abide by them' (cited in
Fremeaux 2005: 269). He argues, for example, that theEuropean Union (EU) is sufferingnot
only from a democratic deficit, but from a community deficit, because 'there is little commit
ment to theunion's common good and to the projects inwhich the union is engaged, including
the project of furtherunification'. He reckons that such a deficitmust be curtailed, if theEU is
to continue to solidify, and must be reduced before the democratic deficit can be overcome by
creating an EU that forms a core of shared values (i.e. a moral culture) and a web of bonds of
affection - a normative-affective community (Etzioni 2007: 34).
Another argument comes from Sandercock (1998), who develops an explicitly Utopianmodel
of 'cosmopolis' - a citymarked by people's willingness to engage respectfully and fearlessly
with 'the other', to learn and to change across communal and cultural bound
by 'transgressing'
aries in 'spaces of urban negotiation'. This integration-in-plurality emphasises long-term
process and mediation whereby groups that celebrate a common culture (communities) learn
also towork democratically in culturally diverse associations and forums.
These project communities can be contested, however. Brent (2004: 214) has argued that
although community activity is partly based on reassuring ideas of co-operation and mutuality,
it is also divisive, 'dividing the inside from the outside and producing internal strifewith the
forces that oppress it,with the enemy within'. It has been noted, for example, thatPutnam's
concept of social capital is inherently value-laden (Fremeaux 2005: 269), given that social

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Mfaniseni Ferna Sihlongonyane

networks enhance 'the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them'. Thus,
it is not exempt from the ideological baggage of its context. As such, theWorld Bank's adoption
of the Social Capital Initiative cannot be taken as value-free. The recognition of the 'norms and
social relations embedded in the social structuresof societies that enable people to coordinate
action to achieve desired goals' as its definition of social capital may be expressed by undemo
cratic governments as norms of suppression. This can be motivated by the fact that social capital
lacks clear indicators,margins of efficacy, and boundaries of existence. Therefore, promoting
social capital may raise many contradictions, whereby various entities claim distinct forms of
social capital, as has been witnessed in groups such as theKu Klux Klan, theBritish Nationalist
Party, the ItalianMafia, and theVolkstaat (South Africa).
The same can be said of communitarianism. Communitarians are majoritarians (Erlich
1990: 57). Derber (1993: 29) contends that communitarian consent is an expression of
the majority opinion about values. As such, it safeguards situations by working through
differentiation - defining those who can have a say and those who may not. This may
undermine constitutionally guaranteed rights. For example, despite having rights to sue or
bring charges against a rapist in South Africa, some people find it uncharacteristic of their
community cultures to take such action against an individual, because the community frowns
on doing so. Pusey (1996: 71) sees this as the essential contrasting feature of the two political
and subjective idealisations: between the 'communitarian self and 'contractarian / libertarian
self. Consequently, in contrast to the positive representations of community put forward by
Etzioni or desired by Sandercock, some theorists assert that communities produce negative
effects. Far from being cohesive and mutually supportive, communities thrive on enmity and
are divisive and disunited. Brent (2004: 216) acknowledges that communities, considered as
assemblages built around either place or activity,will inevitably involve unequal relationships.
Structural features of age, sex(uality), ethnicity, religion, and geography, which are correlated
with inequality in various ways, will inevitably produce frictions, exclusions, and conflict.
To this end, the philosopher JeremyBentham (1748-1832) believed that 'community is a
fiction', while others from Sartre to Nozick consider 'community' a burden if not a 'hell'
(cited in Etzioni 1996b). Indeed, Brent (2004: 214) observed, 'However much we may want
never seems to arrive ... it proves to be illusive as in the paradox
it, community continually
of Zeno, it eludes our grasp no matter what one does to attain it'. Libertarians such as

Nozick (1974: 32) suggest, 'There is no social entity ... There are only individual people,
different individual people, with their own individual lives'. Hence, (Brent 2004: 220) views
'the community as a of
paradigm impossible presence'.
For that reason, some authors challenge the very existence of the community. Albrow et al
(1997: 25) argue that the community has been 'a potentmyth to reinforce efforts to shape the
ever-changing contemporary reality, to stabilise the state, contain disorder and limit the conse
quences of seemingly uncheckable forces of modernity. As such, itwas intimately connected
with themyth of cultural integration.'Derrida (1982) noted that for all its lack of 'the authority
of presence', community is a powerful insubstantiality. Such a past 'thathas never been present'
contains nostalgia - an imagination of a perfect Utopia or wholeness. To this,Zizek (1991) adds
that desire itself is something that has to be constructed through fantasy, and such fantasies
differ in their relationship to different circumstances. The community is an expression of
desires and fantasies as an intrinsic part of social life. Its desires may be split, changeable,
and ambiguous, but community as a desire continually replenishes itself as people see
meaning and connectedness in all their imperfections (cited in Brent 2004: 222).
The community cannot thereforebe seen as a stable phenomenon. Itsmeaning is embedded in
context. Consequently, post-modern theorists such as Burkett (2001: 237) see the building of
community as 'an ongoing act of extraordinary creativity in which one comes face to face

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 'Community development' as a buzz-word

with the struggle of human relationship, of engaging with an-Other'. Similarly O'Hara (1996:
sees the community as an creation. He 'We co-create in turn
151) on-going claims, reality which
creates us', therebycreating a new kind of community. Rose (2000: 1401) also observed that the
community 'consists of multiple objectifications formed at the unstable and uncomfortable
intersectionsbetween politics and thatwhich should and must remain beyond its reach'. In con
clusion, the community iswhat you make it to be at the intersection between politics, purpose,
and the future.

Note
1. World Bank, Community Driven Development, available at
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/
EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/EXTCDD/0?menuPK:430167 ^pagePK: 14
9018~piPK: 149093-theSitePK:430161,00.html ((retrieved7May 2007).

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The author
Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane is lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of
theWitwatersrand. His research focuses on the interface between and urban studies,
development largely
within the dynamics of the political economy of Africa. Contact details: School of Architecture and Planning,

University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, South Africa. <mfaniseni.sihlongonyane@
wits.ac.za>

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