Towards Understanding Community People and Places

by Clay, Chris; Madden, Mary; Potts, Laura K.

• ISBN13: 9780230542648
• ISBN10: 0230542646
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-12-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This is a timely book written in the temporal and political context of the British New Labour Government's ongoing reliance on the word "community." Its key focus is on understanding community from action into theory and theory into action. Academics and activists engage critically with the range of ways in which contemporary ideas of community are being used and contested, examining the current theoretical and practical challenges of building and sustaining convincing senses of community in national and trans-national contexts. Contributions are organised into three thematic sections--Locating community, Justice within and between communities and Building health communities.

Author Biography

CHRISTOPHER J. CLAY is Head of Programme for Community Studies, York St John University, U.K. Over the last 30 plus years he has occupied a variety of roles within York St. John including a period in the 1970s and 1980s as a community worker, first in Hoyland (near Barnsley) and then in York. His teaching and research interests include the social construction of HIV/AIDS, surveillance and social control, and teaching and learning.

MARY MADDEN is Research Fellow, Department of Health Sciences, York University, U.K. She has an interdisciplinary background in English Literature, Critical Theory, Sociology, and Social and Community Work. Her work history combines practical field experience with complex epistemological and methodological challenges to forms of enquiry in the social sciences.

LAURA POTTS is Reader in Public Health and the Environment at York St. John University. She chairs the U.K. Public Health Association's Environmental Pollution and Health Group, and is on the board of Trustees of the Pesticides Action Network U.K.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	p. vii
People and Places: An Introduction Towards Understanding Community	p. 1
The Signature Quilt	p. 4
Locating Community
Locating Community: An Introduction	p. 11
The Politics of Community: New Labour and the Eclipse of Society	p. 22
Learning Communities and Tertiary Education	p. 35
'For All the Women Out There': Community and the Ethics of Care in the Marketing of a Breast Cancer Fundraising Event	p. 47
Contingent Communities: British Social Policy and the Invention of Refugee Communities	p. 60
Justice Within and Between Communities
Justice Within and Between Communities	p. 73
Globalization, Multiple Threats and the Weakness of International Institutions: A Community-Centred Response	p. 85
The Ideal of a Sustainable Community, 2006	p. 97
Community Informatics: Building Civil Society in the Information Age?	p. 111
Working with the Community: Research and Action	p. 123
Impetus: A Movement Towards Shared Ethical Values and Human Rights	p. 137
Building Healthy Communities
Building Healthy Communities	p. 153
How Communities Can Use Geographical Information Systems	p. 163
Community Capacity Building, Community Development and Health: A Case Study of 'Health Issues in the Community'	p. 178
A Community of Expertise: Positioning the UK Environmental Breast Cancer Movement	p. 191
Towards Understanding Community: Developing Participatory Working	p. 204
Bibliography	p. 218
Index	p. 243
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.