Sodality in Peri-Urban Community Empowerment: Perspective of Development Communication and Extension Science

Abstract

Tjondronegoro's concept of sodality is gaining momentum to be applied in a broader context. Sodality is relevant to participatory approaches in community development, extension/empowerment, and development communication. This study aims to answer how the role of sodality is in the empowerment of peri-urban communities from communication and extension development sciences. This research method uses a participatory action study by placing the researcher to live with the community. Sodality can be interpreted as the life force of a unique community unit. However, without any family relationship, they are bound by a synergy of interest relations without eliminating the primary relationship. In the context of empowerment, the bonds in sodality are colored more with interest in achieving life necessities among community members. Thus, in peri-urban communities, sodality is closer to the meaning of social capital, which effectively strengthens the community's efforts to live a life together, both with internal and external parties. The Tjondronegoro version of the concept of sodality in the current era is not only for the smallest community unit in the community territory, but it can be strengthened by the meaning of a synergy of interests in meeting the needs of a community.

Private Extensionists’ Role in an Effort to Achieve SDGs through Peri-Urban Community Empowerment

“…This dialogue can be seen from the on-going communication that prioritizes equality or nondominance (equity), and respects the opinions of participants (humanists) so that good participation occurs. These results are consistent with the concepts and findings of Sumardjo et al, (2021) in the case of coastal communities with the main livelihood pattern of seaweed and the role of cooperatives in sodality forums. In simple terms, the results of this analysis can be seen in Figure 4.…”

“…The level of communication convergence is a determinant aspect of effective empowerment. This case is in line with the sodality concept by Sumardjo et al (2021) about an effective community empowerment in the coastal areas in West Java. The general objective (ideal) of the organic agriculture empowerment program is to develop farming with the perspective of "Honoring Nature" as well as having an ecological-economic perspective.…”

“…With a cybernetic approach, it can clarify the objectivity of information by combining secondary data from reports of program managers with data from result key informant interviews, especially data related to the achievement of SDGs. The same approach is also found in the research case of Sumardjo et al (2021); Sumardjo et al (2020); . In this case the authors entrust the primary data from related informant sources.…”

Social Transformation in Peri-Urban Communities toward Food Sustainability and Achievement of SDGs in the Era of Disruption

“…Companies that contribute to poverty alleviation and the achievement of SDGs are appreciated in the assessment of the Environmental Performance Improvement Program (Proper) by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. This encourages companies to play a role in community empowerment in the first-ring impact area of their operational activities [14][15][16].…”

“…The hexahelix approach is a development of the synergistic collaboration approach among academics, businesses, government, and communities (ABG-C) at the local level. Furthermore, there is the development of the pentahelix approach, which involves academics, businesses, government, communities, and facilitators/change agents [13,15]. In the era of the pandemic, the role of social media is increasingly important for communication among internal and external stakeholders in building social capital and human capital [17][18][19].…”