Community Activation for Integral Development

<p>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.</p><p>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’ affectingor maligning practices in the ‘rest’. The approach taken in this book looks at these developments by turning them on their head: instead starting <i>bottom-up </i>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.</p><p>This book provides a guide for readers on how to build community within their organization-and-society from the ground up.</p>