Method and Analysis in Participatory Community Development

The 2-day process will introduce practitioners to the ‘method framework’ of implicate, micro, mezzo, macro and meta-levels of development practices (see Kelly & Westoby, Participatory Development Practice, Practical Action Press, 2018). It's a true and tired methodology and participants will finish the workshop with a clear 'method framework' for their community development thinking and practice. Community Praxis Co-op has run this process many many times all over Queensland and other parts of the world.

We will specifically:

• Examine the role of ‘community’ in ‘development’ within contemporary society;

• Learn the how-to of micro-level practice - establishing a developmental relationship, and practising key principles such as:

- see what the people see; see how we see; connecting and dialogue, working with key joining words in dialogue

• Learn the how to of mezzo-level practices – establishing and supporting participatory action groups and practising key principles such as:

- testing and moving from private concern to shared public analysis and action; the 0-1 agreement process, and 0-1-3 group formation process; facilitation of small mezzo-groups (the 7 steps of mezzo method)

• Consider the challenges of holding participatory work from within organisations (macro and meta-level work);

• Reflect on our utopian visions for social change and consider the contribution of CD to broader level systemic transformation.

The process will be potent and practical for:

• People who’ve got community development in their job descriptions, but feel they need a clear ‘to do’ or ‘method framework’

• Practitioners who’d like to reflect on the quality of their community development practice; and their own quality in the practice

• Active and engaged citizens who’d like to be more conscious of their intuitive community-oriented practices

• Activists, social and ecological practitioners wanting to add a community development approach to their work.

This process will be held at the Camellia Centre for Sou-Work & Reflective Practice on Jinibara Country, on the edge of the Maleny ranges, north of Brisbane, where participants will be invited to a sensitivity of being-on-country and listening to-country.

The process will consist of two days, 9.30am-4.30pm, Thursday and Friday, 28th and 29th April, 2022. You are invited to stay in local B&Bs and AirB&Bs overnight either side of the days – or longer should you like to enjoy the bio-region during late summer (waterholes, beaches, bush walks).  The gathering will include morning and afternoon teas but participants must bring your own lunches, or head to Mary Cairncross Cafe for delicious food.

About your facilitator & host:

Peter Westoby was introduced at a keynote of the 2018 International Association of Community Development as “a community development scholar, activist and analyst”. Peter kind of liked the ring of it; almost poetic. Yet, more accurately, from the age of 20, Peter has been on a journey of community development practice, deeply shaped by a grass-roots tradition, Freirean in nature, and place-based. That evolved over many years, particularly as he worked in places such as South Africa, Uganda, the Philippines, Nepal, PNG and Vanuatu.

At the age of 40 he found himself as a latecomer wading into the academy, and perhaps by chance, took up a position as a community development scholar just as Anthony Kelly retired from 40 years of teaching, practice and service at The University of Queensland.

He has been a writer or co-writer/editor of 15 books and over 50 professional journal articles on community development (https://uq.academia.edu/PeterWestoby), and loves that there is an emerging global ‘community of scholarship’ growing around the world. But more importantly, he loves reading, walking, sitting by a fire under the moon or stars, wandering daily in Mary Cairncross Park, exploring his bio-region, being with friends, sipping a coffee at dawn, and going to bed about 8.30pm (yes, he’s a lark, not an owl).

At this present moment he is also:

• Director/consultant at Community Praxis Co-op;
• a P/T practitioner at Hummingbird House;
• a Custodian of Camellia Centre for Reflective Practice; and
• a Visiting Professor, University of the Free State, South Africa.

Check this out to listen to Peter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cq1l81NT70