Local community on trial

Abstract

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Geographies and politics of localism: The localism of the United Kingdom's coalition government

“…They tend to overestimate the extent to which contemporary localities are coherent and autonomous -or the extent to which they can be made to be so. This was true of New Labour's attempt to govern through community (Amin 2005, Wallace 2010. It is also true of the Coalition Government's localism.…”

Everyday participation and cultural value

“…It also allows us to consider how cultural and social capital is produced and mobilised contextually through participation (Frow, 1995), and how these assets might be translated into value in the vernacular dimension to effect civic capacity and quality of life around alternative value sets (Edensor, Leslie, Millington, & Rantisi, 2010;Gilmore, 2013). Our other frame for exploring everyday participation as a situated process derives from an identification of the ways in which "community" and "place" have, since the late nineteenth century, come to operate as central logics in the governance of "culture" (Amin, 2005;Osborne & Rose, 1999). UEP's focus on the concept of the cultural ecosystem (see below) is designed to contextualise and examine the impact of these logics on the sociocultural constructions of places and communities and the relationships between formal and informal participation, both historically and in the present day.…”

Beyond sweat equity: Community organising beyond the Third Way

“…The majority, therefore, were white and of middle age, although there were interesting perspectives gathered from BME or younger activists, particularly in Lenton, and from others who participated in the observational elements. Amin (2002Amin ( , 2005, DeFillipis, Fisher and Shragge (2006, 2009), and Cornwall and Coelho (2006, have all made the case for adopting a political economy approach when studying community initiatives, setting any analysis 'within the histories of state-society relations that have shaped the configurations and contestations of the present ' (Cornwall and Coelho, 2006:22). Amin (2005) suggests that this offers a way out of the moral narrative which distinguishes between "good" communities (those who generate the right amount, and right kind, of social capital) and "bad" communities (those who don't), focusing instead on the relations which influence who feels they have a right and a motivation to participate, and who doesn't.…”

“…Amin (2002Amin ( , 2005, DeFillipis, Fisher and Shragge (2006, 2009), and Cornwall and Coelho (2006, have all made the case for adopting a political economy approach when studying community initiatives, setting any analysis 'within the histories of state-society relations that have shaped the configurations and contestations of the present ' (Cornwall and Coelho, 2006:22). Amin (2005) suggests that this offers a way out of the moral narrative which distinguishes between "good" communities (those who generate the right amount, and right kind, of social capital) and "bad" communities (those who don't), focusing instead on the relations which influence who feels they have a right and a motivation to participate, and who doesn't. This requires an exploration of 'how community takes on different meanings in different conditions of economic and social well-being and in different institutional settings' (Amin, 2005:623), while regeneration areas are treated as 'spaces of plural publics, contested claims, and irreconcilable understandings of the good life.'…”