This chapter discusses the efforts of community workers to obtain consent in local communities as a basis for taking action on issues that are affecting local people’s lives. Crucial here is that community workers resist the initial urge to settle for consensus and as a consequencelimit the possibilities for creativity, exploration and interpersonal development. Drawing on two case studies, one from Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and one from Chelsea (US), the requirements and process of acquiring consent are outlined. Consent in general refers to a form of permission to act or take action. In this chapter we consider it as a sense of approval by neighbourhood community members to engage in a collective course of action. Community workers often play a crucial part in the acquisition of community consent as they support the process of recognition of the diversity of interests, opinions and values that characterises local life. Consent is necessary for creatingsustainable local initiatives, incorporating, instead of eliminating, conflicting positions. This acknowledgement of diversity can be seen as an ethical requirement in community development practice, but also as a strategic issue for community workers. After all, without being able to obtain legitimacy for their engagement with local issues, effective community development work is impossible.This chapter focuses on neighbourhood-based community development work in geographical communities. However, similar principles apply in all forms of community development, including work with communities of interest and identity. We use the term‘community worker’ to refer to someone who takes on a facilitating and coordinating role with members of communities to build community capacity and/or bring about social change. Such workers may be paid and professionally qualified, or unpaid volunteers andactivists. They may live in the communities where they work/are active, or reside outside these areas. These circumstances influence the legitimacy of their interventions, as well as how consent is gained and consensus reached.
This article provides a nano (hyperlocal) view of climate change mitigation by viewing regenerative organizing through the eyes (as well as bodies and senses, etc.) of the households engaged in community-based energy projects. By showing what humans make up for in the largely absent relationship between nature and technology in these projects, we envision an incremental extension of the literature on community-based energy. The radically different contribution we aim to make is a tripartite imbrication that brings in natural agency alongside the human and the technical but specifies precisely how nano (smaller than micro) embodied practices afford mis- and realignments. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086026619886841 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
With this study we bring some understanding on how such event-place community practices are established and promulgated, answering the following question: How does an event become a platform for the community and how does the community become a platform for the event? Answering this is particular pertinent in the rural context
This project entails a feasibility study to assess the possibility of creating an open-access, community-based makerspace in the Vietnamese city of Can Tho. The aim of the project is to kickstart the community based circular economy by utilizing residual flows from the plastic catching process. Plastic catchers trap both plastic and biomass that will be converted into new products to strengthen both the local economy and providing Dutch SME-company Orange Star Solutions with the necessary raw materials to convert into produce. The project will make use of a plot of land bordering the Song Can Tho river. The owner proposed that the plot of land could be used in a way to generate income, preferable in a way that would show environmental awareness. This could be done by using the vast amounts of (in)organic waste that is littering the environment. The collection of the waste is mainly done by local waste pickers. The waste pickers, part of the informal economy, could unleash their full potential if there is a physical location where waste is upcycled and sold, circumventing the bury, burn or bale-and-export economy. The extracted plastic will be converted into pans, cups, pots and crockery. The biomass, predominantly water hyacinth, will serve as one of the ingredients for compost hence, reducing the reliance on chemical fertilizers.
Indonesia’s peat forests remain severely threatened by forest fires, oil palm plantation development and extractive industries, which leads to biodiversity loss, increased emissions of greenhouse gases, and the marginalization of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. In 2008 the Government of Indonesia introduced the Social Forestry Programme under which Indigenous Peoples and local communities can acquire a 35-year management permit. Since then, about 10 percent of Indonesian State Forest has been designated for community-based forest conservation and restoration initiatives. The devolution of authority to the local level has created a new playing field. The Social Forestry Programme reverses more than a century of centralistic forest policy, and requires a fundamental re-orientation of all actors working in the forestry sector. The central question underlying this proposal is how Dutch civil society organizations (applied universities and NGOs) can effectively support Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the protection and restoration of peat forests in Indonesia. This project aims to set up a Living Lab in Ketapang District in West Kalimantan to study, identify and test novel ways to work together with a variety of stakeholders to effectively conserve and restore peat forest. In Ketapang District, Tropenbos Indonesia has assisted three Village Forest Management Groups (Pematang Gadung, Sungai Pelang and Sungai Besar) in securing a Social Forestry Permit. Students from three Dutch Universities (Van Hall Larenstein, Aeres Hogeschool and Inholland) will conduct research in partnership with students from Universitas Tanjungpura on the integration of local ecological knowledge and technical expertise, on the economic feasibility of community-based forestry enterprises, and on new polycentric governance structures. The results of these studies will be disseminated to policy makers and civil society groups working in Indonesia, using the extensive networks of IUCN NL and Tropenbos Indonesia.
