As mass global and social media communications spread across the globe, we are seeing a need for a change in the way we approach issues of political and economic development. The effects of these growing communications are that, on the one hand, we see the significance of place rising, while on the other, marginalized people clamour to be heard and identities become increasingly threatened. We are quickly realizing that a ‘one-size fits all’ approach is not going to work.
Despite more than half a century of attempts to address issues of development, we have seen fairly bleak results. In fact, the rising of economic stars, such as Japan and the Pacific Tigers hitherto, and China and India of late, have little to do with such programs of development or cultural studies, notwithstanding their accomplishment. Typically, such successes have developed top-down, with theories born and bred in the ‘West’ affecting,or maligning, practices in the ‘rest’. The approach taken in this book looks at these developments by turning them on their head: instead, starting bottom-up with an emphasis on what the author terms ‘community activation’. With a selection of case studies, this volume looks at where community activation can be found and explores how it could evolve and be of use in developing societies at large. In the process, he addresses such topics as how to embed development in a particular society, how to generate social and economic solidarity, and how to generate wealth from pre-industrial and post-industrial networks.
This book provides a guide for readers on how to build community within their organization-and-society from the ground up.
Part I Southern grounding of community: livelihood, healing, truth quest 1 Securing livelihoods: grounding of the relational path – a natural-communal perspective on community activation 2 Healing community: grounding of the eastern path of renewal – a Pax Africana perspective on community activation 3 Truth quest: grounding of the north-western path of reasoned realization – a primocracy perspective on community activation Part II Eastern emergence of community: permaculture, vitality of place, disclose new worlds 4 Permaculture: emergence via awakening of the relational path – an ecodynamic perspective on community activation 5 Vitality of place: emergence via awakening of the path of renewal – a developmental perspective on community activation 6 Disclose new worlds: integral awakening of community activation Part III Northern communal navigation: participatory action research, study circles, networks 7 Participatory action research: a research-laden institutional perspective on community activation 8 Study circles: an educational and institutional research perspective on community activation 9 Wealth of networks: a networked and institutionalized research perspective on community activation Part IV Western communal effect: build community, self-sufficiency, mutual development 10 Community building: an enterprise perspective on community activation 11 Self-sufficiency: an economic perspective on community activation 12 Mutual development: purveyors of the province – a mutual educational perspective on community activation Epilogue: the gene of community activation – relational, renewal, and reasoned realization paths
Biography
Ronnie Lessem has been an international management consultant in Europe, America, India and Africa for the last three decades.
