SOC604 Handouts by Paradoxical

Lesson 01 · INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY of COMMUNITY · TOPIC 001-004 · Topic 001: Orientation to Course Objectives

This course will help students

To understand about community, types of community, concept of community organization and community development.

• To analyze the setup of the community critically.

To develop the ability to identify problem areas and identify work approaches best suited to local conditions.

What is Community?

The term community is very loosely used. It is used in different ways to mean different things. People often use the term community to refer to a racial community, or a religious community or a national community or a caste community or a linguistic community or a professional community or to refer to the entire mankind. It is used to mean an association or group and in a wider sense, it is used to refer to the entire humanity.

The word ‘community has been derived from two Latin words ‘com’ and ‘Munis’. In English ‘com’ means ‘to serve together’. It means, the community is an organization of human beings framed for the purposes of serving together.

Definitions of Community

Community is “a social group with some degree of ‘” we feeling” and living in a given area”. (Bogardus)

Community is “the total organization of social life with a limited area” (Ogburn and Nimkoff)

Characteristics of Community

The characteristics of community are enlisted below;

1. A group of People
2. A definite locality
3. Community sentiments
4. Natural
5. Permanence
6. Similarity
7. Wider ends
8. Total organized social life
9. A particular name
10. No legal status
11. Size of community
12. Distinguish structure
13. Concrete nature
14. Wider ends
15. Total organized social life
16. A particular name
17. No legal status
18. Size of community
19. Distinguish structure
20. Concrete nature

Topic 002: Introduction to Community Development

There are two concepts: Community and development

Community is a functionally related aggregate of people who live in a particular geographical locality at a particular time, show a common culture, are arranged in a social structure, exhibit an awareness of their uniqueness and separate identity as a group.

Development has several meanings including modernization, urbanization, industrialization, social or political transformation, technological improvement and economic growth.

Definition of Community Development

Community development “A group of people in a locality initiating a social action process to change their economic, social and cultural or environmental situation”. Community development is planned change.

Analysis of the term Community Development

Community development is bringing forth the potential abilities and qualities of group of people who live together in a common territory and who have an interdependent relationship with each other. Community development aims to develop the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of communities. Solutions to community problems are developed by local people, based on local knowledge and priorities.

It is a continuous process of social action by which the people of a community:

a) Define their common and group needs.

b) Organize themselves formally and informally for democratic planning and action.

c) More groups of 'individuals plan to meet their needs and solve their problems.

d) Execute their plans with maximum of reliance upon their own resources.

e) Supplement their resources from outside the community when necessary with service and material.

Contrasting Frameworks of Community Development

As a Process (a method of change)

As a program of specified activities such as housing, construction, adoption agricultural innovations or implementation of recreational activities.

As an outcome (the desired end result of change)

As an ideology of action, to reconstruct the social, normative or economic order to achieve desirable goals

Topic 003: History of Community Development

Community Development is a collective effort of community people who come together and make a collective effort to achieve their collective objectives to improve their quality of life and has occurred throughout history.

The concept of community development can be traced from about two hundred years ago and since then numerous organizations and movements have devoted their time to improving rural life which emerged in the post-civil war era.

History of Community Development before Partition

In the 18th Century the work of the early socialist thinker Robert Owen (1771-1851), sought through Community Planning, to create the perfect community. At New Lanark and at later utopian communities such as Oneida in the USA and the New Australia Movement in Australia, groups of people came together to create intentional utopian communities, with mixed success The community planning techniques became important in the 1920s and 1930s in East Africa, where Community Development proposals were seen as a way of helping local people improve their own lives with indirect assistance from colonial authorities.

The Term community development was first officially used in 1948 at British Colonial office Cambridge Conference on the development of American Initiative.

Community Development aimed to help British Colonies in Africa to prepare for independence