Rethinking International Development Series Series Editors: Andy Sumner, Fellow of the Vulnerability and Poverty Research Team, Institute of Development Studies, UK. Ray Kiely, Professor of International Politics, Queen Mary University of London, UK. Palgrave Macmillan is delighted to announce a new series dedicated to publishing cutting-edge titles that focus on the broad area of development. The core aims of the series are to present critical work that: is cross disciplinary; challenges orthodoxies; reconciles theoretical depth with empirical research; explores the frontiers of development studies in terms of development in both North and South and global inter-connectedness; reflects on claims to knowledge and intervening in other peoples lives. Titles include: Simon Feeny and Matthew Clarke THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND BEYOND International Assistance to the Asia-Pacific Niamh Gaynor TRANSFORMING PARTICIPATION? The Politics of Development in Malawi and Ireland Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke (editors) CHALLENGING CAPACITY BUILDING Comparative Perspectives Eric Rugraff, Diego Sánchez-Ancochea, Andy Sumner (editors) TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY Critical Perspectives Jens Stilhoff Sörensen (editor) CHALLENGING THE AID PARADIGM Western Currents and Asian Alternatives Andy Sumner and Meera Tiwari AFTER 2015: INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY AT A CROSSROADS Rethinking International Development Series Series Standing Order ISBN 978 0230 53751 4 (hardback) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Challenging Capacity Building Comparative Perspectives Edited By Sue Kenny Director of the Centre for Citizenship, Development and Human Rights, Deakin University, Australia Matthew Clarke Deputy Head, School of International and Political Studies, Deakin University, Australia
Editorial matter, selection and introduction Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke 2010 All remaining chapters respective authors 2010 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-23323-2 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN 978-1-349-31330-3 ISBN 978-0-230-29805-7 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230298057 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Challenging capacity building : comparative perspectives / edited by Sue Kenny, Matthew Clarke. p. cm. (Rethinking international development series) 1. Community development Case studies. 2. Infrastructure (Economics) Environmental aspects Case studies. 3. Sustainable development Case studies. I. Kenny, Susan, 1946 II. Clarke, Matthew, 1969 HN49.C6C4815 2010 307.1 4 dc22 2010012497 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
Contents List of Tables List of Contributors vii viii Part I Capacity Building and Community Development: 1 Challenging Rhetoric and Practice Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke Chapter 2 Developing Capacities and Agency in Complex 21 Times Chris Miller Chapter 3 Community Capacity Building: Critiquing the 41 Concept in Different Policy Contexts Gary Craig Chapter 4 Capacity Building and Community Development 67 Jim Ife Part II Practical Challenges of Capacity Building 85 Chapter 5 Emergent Drivers for Building and Sustaining 87 Capacity in Australian Indigenous Communities Jill Abdullah and Susan Young Chapter 6 Re-imagining Capacity Building When 112 Participation is Constrained: Illegal Burmese Migrants in Thailand Matthew Clarke Chapter 7 The Solomon Islands: Conflict and Capacity 133 Heather Wallace Chapter 8 Capacity Building in Indonesia: Building 156 What Capacity? Ismet Fanany, Rebecca Fanany and Sue Kenny Chapter 9 Capacity Building and Urban Regeneration in 185 Dublin, Ireland Michelle Share v
vi Contents Chapter 10 Capacity Building and Community Power 211 Randy Stoecker Chapter 11 Transition Towns and Community Capacity 229 Building Phil Connors Chapter 12 Conclusion: Critical Capacity Building 248 Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke Index 258
List of Tables Table 6.1 Types of Abuse Encountered by Illegal Burmese 115 Migrants in Mae Sot Table 6.2 Comparison of Key Indices Between Thailand 118 and Burma Table 6.3 Constraints of Working with Illegal Burmese 125 Migrant Communities vii
List of Contributors As researchers, policy advisers, practitioners, writers, editors and teachers in the areas of international and community development, many of the authors of this proposed book have identified a lack of critical analyses of the idea and practice of capacity building and the need for rigorous examination of the complexities and tensions in developing and implementing capacity building programmes. The focus of many capacity building programmes is poor and disadvantaged communities and the appropriateness of capacity building for these groups, whether located in developing or developed countries, is presented as self-evident. In much of the discussion of how to build capacity, critical questions regarding the determination of whose capacities are to built, the methods by which capacity will be built (for example, exogenous or endogenous) and the consequences for wider relationships of those whose capacity is being built (and presumably for those whose capacity is being left to be built at another time!) are not investigated. A deeper understanding of the meaning, practice and potential of capacity building is necessary and is undertaken in this book. Editors Professor Sue Kenny is the Director of the Centre for Citizenship, Development and Human Rights at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. She has extensive research and consultancy experience in development issues in Australia and internationally and has published widely on community development and non-government organisations. Associate Professor Matthew Clarke is Deputy Head of the School of International and Political Studies and the Course the Director of the International and Community Development programme at Deakin University, Australia. Associate Professor Clarke also undertakes regular evaluations of community development projects in the Pacific and South-east Asia. Other contributors Professor Chris Miller is Professor of Social and Community Development at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK, Director of the Centre for Local Democracy, Research Fellow Centre for Pyscho-Social viii
List of Contributors ix Studies and Editor of the Community Development Journal. Professor Miller teaches research methods, policy and professional practice on the Masters in Leadership and Organisation for Public Services programme, which he helped establish. Professor Gary Craig is Professor of Social Justice at the University of Hull, Head of the Centre for Social Inclusion and Social Justice, and Associate Director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation. His research interests include poverty, local governance, race and ethnicity and community development. He is President of the International Association for Community Development, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies in the Social Sciences. Professor Jim Ife is Honorary Professor at the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights at Deakin University, and Emeritus Professor in the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University. His academic interests have centered on community development and human rights, and he has published extensively in both fields. He is currently working on a book Human Rights from Below which will integrate understandings of theory and practice from the perspectives of both community development and human rights. Dr Michelle Share is a Senior Researcher at the Children s Research Centre, Trinity College Dublin, where she leads the Centre in programme evaluation. She is involved in research and evaluation work in a number of Dublin city urban regeneration programmes. Prior to her appointment to the Children s Research Centre, Michelle was employed as a Senior Research Officer in the Division of Population Health, Health Services Executive. Jill Abdullah is a Wudjari woman with matrilineal links to a country in the south-east of Western Australia. Jill has completed her Master of Arts (Social Sciences) and is currently enrolled in a Doctor of Creative Arts at Curtin University of Technology. Throughout her career Jill has won both national and state awards and been successful with APA scholarships & AIATSIS research grants. Jill has extensive educational, policy and administrative experience in various government, statutory and academic organisations. She was a Visiting Fellow at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and has supervised doctoral, masters and post-graduate students at Curtin University of Technology.
x List of Contributors Dr Susan Young is a social work educator whose practice experience has been over the past thirty years in community development, much of which has been with remote Indigenous communities. Susan s recent publications have investigated the relationships between Indigenous and non-indigenous workers in a large welfare bureaucracy. Dr Ismet Fanany lectures in Indonesian language and culture and coordinates Deakin s in-country intensive Indonesian language and culture programme held every summer semester in Padang, West Sumatra. Before coming to Deakin, he was Head of the Department of Asian Languages and Studies at the University of Tasmania. His most recent publications include topics on Malay proverbs and metaphors and language and public policy. In addition, he also writes fiction and translates from English into Indonesian. Dr Rebecca Fanany teaches within the School of Public health at La Trobe University, Australia. She has lived and worked in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore periodically since her first contact with the region in 1981. She has worked in collaboration with her husband on many projects. Dr Heather Wallace is a lecturer in the Masters of lnternational and Community Development at Deakin University. She has a background of research and work in aid and development projects in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan and India. Dr Wallace s research includes government and NGO relationships in development with a particular focus on the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. She has had various articles published on community development, gender and development issues in the Pacific Islands. Professor Randy Stoecker is Associate Professor in the Department of Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, with a joint appointment in the University of Wisconsin-Extension Center for Community and Economic Development. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, and a Masters of Science in Counseling from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He moderates/edits COMM-ORG: The On-Line Conference on Community Organizing and Development (http://comm-org.wisc.edu). He conducts training and speaks frequently on community organising and development, participatory research/ evaluation, and community information technology.
List of Contributors xi Dr Phil Connors is a lecturer in International and Community Development at Deakin University and has undertaken research for Victoria Police into engaging with hard to reach communities and youth. Currently Dr Connors is completing a research project with the Big Issue Magazine in Melbourne exploring the economic and social outcomes for vendors.