Leadership in the community sector: promoting collaboration and social change in Belfast

Community development is centrally concerned with people in communities working together to achieve a common goal, that is, to collaborate, whether within local geographical communities, in communities of shared interests or among groups sharing a common identity. Its overarching goal is one of progressive transformational social change. As Belfast transitions from a conflict to a post-conflict society, there is a need for greater, more effective work at local community level in order to address a range of ongoing social and economic issues facing communities, including high levels of disadvantage and division. Given the significance of leadership in building effective collaboration and the centrality of collaboration for community development, it is important to understand how leadership is currently enacted and what kinds of leadership are required to support communities to collaborate effectively to bring about social change. This thesis thus centers on the kind of leadership practised and required to support collaboration for social change within the community sector in Belfast, a city that contains an estimated 28% of the total number of community and voluntary sector (CVS) organisations in Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action, 2012). Through a series of qualitative, in-depth interviews with people playing leadership roles in local communities, the study critically explores and analyses their experiences and perceptions in relation to leadership and collaboration. Community development in Belfast today is practised within a wider context of neoliberal policies, characterised by austerity and public spending cuts. Whilst not the only influencing factor, this context has had a particular and profound impact on the nature and role of community development practised, and on the kind of leadership enacted within it. The space for reflection and transformative action appears to be shrinking as the contraction of resources to support community development in local communities continues unabated. Those playing leadership roles increasingly find themselves compelled to spend time seeking resources and managing complex funding arrangements rather than focusing on the social change dimensions of their work. Collaboration as promoted by the state seems to have become an instrumental tactic used to implement its austerity measures and curtail the potential of the community sector. Despite this, local leaders are driving initiatives that attempt to push back, helping the sector refocus on its transformational goals of social change. To do this requires support. Those playing leadership roles require resources, including time, to encourage and enable communities to reconnect with the purpose and underpinning values of community development. Leaders also need support to develop and promote new, progressive narratives and visions and pursue these through building collaboration and solidarity.

Participation by place-based community organisations in local development: case studies from East Cork

The past two decades have witnessed concerted efforts by theorists and policy-makers to place civil society at the centre of social, economic and environmental development processes. To this end, policies grounded in a Third Way approach have sought to forge stronger linkages between the state and voluntary community-based organisations. Concepts such as active citizenship, social capital, partnership and sustainability have underpinned this political philosophy, which reflects a movement in development theory and political science away from notions of state-led development and unfettered neo-liberalism. In the Irish context, a series of initiatives have given expression to this new policy agenda, the foremost amongst them the publication of a White Paper in 2000. New local governance structures and development schemes have multiplied since the early 1990s, while the physical planning system has also been modified. All this has taken place against the backdrop of unprecedented economic development and social change precipitated by the ‘Celtic Tiger’.This thesis examines the interaction between community organisations, state institutions and other actors in development processes in East Cork. It focuses upon place-based community organisations, who seek to represent the interests of their particular localities. A case study approach is employed to explore the realpolitik of local development and to gauge the extent to which grassroots community organisations wield influence in determining the development of their communities. The study concludes that the transfer of decision-making power to community organisations has been more illusory than real and that, in practical terms, such groups remain marginal in the circuits of power. However, the situation of community organisations operating in different geographical locales cannot be reduced to an overarching theoretical logic. The case studies show that the modus operandi of community groups varies considerably and can be influenced by specific local geographies, events and personalities.

Thomas Davis's education policies: theory and practice

This thesis explores the education policies of Thomas Davis. On the eve of the Great Famine Ireland was economically impoverished and politically dependent. The Irish people had a subservient mentality, were mainly uneducated and were unaware of their potential. He believed that education would develop a self-reliant, self-sufficient people; it would create a new generation of leaders and citizens necessary to transform Ireland into a prosperous, independent nation. This thesis explores his education philosophy which was political in orientation; he called for reform of university education so that it would educate leaders who were knowledgeable, patriotic and responsible. He formulated a curriculum which consisted of knowledge that would have direct use and application in public life; his curriculum included moral philosophy, oratory, philological studies and history. His contribution to the debate on the Queens Colleges bill, 1845, is explored including his public disagreement with Daniel O’Connell on the principle of multi-denominational education. This work also examines his policies on learning methodologies and teaching methods. It provides details of his thoughts on learning by experience, by observation, book learning and learning in the home. It focuses on the deficiencies evident in the system of teaching and learning that operated in Trinity College Dublin and it provides an analysis of his preferred method of instruction: Lyceum teaching. This thesis also explores his national curriculum in history and Irish culture which was designed to forge a sense of national identity, to win support for repeal and to develop the principle of nationality. He formulated a national curriculum to counteract the absence of national knowledge in the state schools, to provide the people with a positive self-image and ultimately to empower them to reclaim Ireland and to develop it. Davis knew the power of education and he used it as an instrument of political and social change.

A cultural study on communication and technology with specific reference to media in China

This dissertation examines the role of communications technology in social change. It examines secondary data on contemporary China arguing that many interpretations of events in China are unsuitable at best and at worst conceptually damages our understanding of social change in China. This is especially the case in media studies under the ‘democratic framework’. It proposes that there is an alternative framework in studying the media and social change. This alternative conceptual framework is termed a zone of interpretative development offering a means by which to discuss events that take place in a mediated environment. Taking a theoretical foundation using the philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin this dissertation develops a platform with which to understand communication technology from an anthropological perspective. Three media events from contemporary China are examined. The first examines the Democracy Wall event and the implications of using a public sphere framework. The second case examines the phenomenon of the Grass Mud Horse, a symbol that has gained popular purchase as a humorous expression of political dissatisfaction and develops the problems seen in the first case but with some solutions. Using a modification of Lev Vygotskiĭ’s zone of proximal development this symbol is understood as an expression of the collective recognition of a shared experience. In the second example from the popular TV talent show contests in China further expressions of collective experience are introduced. With the evidence from these media events in contemporary China this dissertation proposes that we can understand certain modes of communication as occurring in a zone of interpretative development. This proposed anthropological feature of social change via communication and technology can fruitfully describe meaning-formation in society via the expression and recognition of shared experiences.

The politics of transformative harmony

This paper explores the idea of transformative harmony as a concern of the political. It proposes that the cultivation of harmony as a project of the Self is closely related to the political project of democracy as a quest for social harmony. This is in light of the view that social conflict can be seen as a collective manifestation of individual struggles to establish inner harmony. The paper, firstly, explores the idea that the quest for harmony is an intersubjective, as well as an intra-subjective, undertaking. This is in line with the Gandhian principle that societies ultimately reflect the level of enlightenment of the actors who form them. It also critiques the use of violence as a means of securing transformative harmony and social change. Finally, the paper discusses the way in which transformative harmony, in terms of its focus on the Self as the site for attaining the type of altered consciousness required to bring about social change, shares a philosophical basis with both ideas of ‘deep democracy’ and Habermasian discourse ethics. It is proposed that the project of transformative harmony represents, by default, a project to transform democratic praxis. Keywords: Harmony, politics, ethics, rights, duties, Gandhi, democracy, risk.