Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement

Integrating asset-based community development and community-based research for social change: A beginning

Mark Chupp, Jennifer Hirsch, Margaret Malone — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 10:26:10 +1100

This themed volume is grounded in a set of diverse case studies that bring community and university partners together using two aligned methodologies: community-based research (CBR), which evolved from higher education, and asset-based community development (ABCD), which evolved from community practice. The volume places these methodologies in dialogue with each other, to examine and begin to answer the question that guided the volume’s call for articles: can CBR and ABCD be compatible agents in equitable and sustainable change? From the case studies emerge five themes that we explore in this guest editorial: (1) the benefits of community-university partnerships; (2) the risks of community-university partnerships; (3) notions of community expertise and ‘community partner’; (4) the centrality of relationship-based methodologies in partner-building; and (5) explorations of power, equity and justice. The editorial opens and closes with discussion on the important systemic question of power imbalances between universities and communities, which has to be addressed for these methodologies to be effective, whether used on their own or in combination within community-university partnerships. It concludes with a discussion of the ‘deep, wide and connected’ community engagement that the articles as a whole suggest is necessary to have equitable and sustainable impact.

Partnership for change: A collaborative framework for transformative engagement with the communities

Purva Bhatt, Manju Singh — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 12:36:11 +1100

Institutes of knowledge production, namely higher educational institutes, interpret their role in relation to engagement in various forms. This article focuses on one such collaboration between academia and a local rural community intended to address their socioeconomic problems through a technological intervention based on an integrated community engagement and asset-based community development framework. Whilst these collaborative partnerships between academic and community experts can themselves take a range of forms, this article argues that, to be effective, researchers have to deal with not just the practical issues of how the community participates in research, but also the sublime issues of knowledge and power, especially in places where colonial imprints still persist. Thus, drawing on empirical examples from two significant initiatives of Indian academia, namely the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan and the Rural Action Technology Group, this article, through a project initiative, highlights the significance of the relational dimensions to these collaborative partnerships and the significance of equitable partnership-based trust, reciprocity and mutual respect using case study analysis. Through ethnographic field experiences of a rural Indian village, it identifies what could produce epistemically just dynamics, critical to achieving transformative engagement. In doing so, the article makes a case for meaningful ways in which the efforts of the higher education institutes could be interlinked with assets of the community to help restore them to thriving and resilient communities, as witnessed in the pre-colonial rule of India. It further offers researchers and community-engagement practitioners a pragmatic way forward, along with caveats for achieving such transformation.

Front porch conversations: Methodological innovations to participatory action research and asset-based community development

Josh Brewer, Brandon Kliewer — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +1100

Complex public problems are resistant to top-down, technical solutions creating the need for new and innovative ways of approaching community. In response, many practitioners working in community development organisations have embraced community strengths- or asset-based approaches to community development, including Asset Based Community Development (ABCD). Similarly, those scholars committed to social change have started to include action research/learning and participatory approaches to their research design, including Participatory Action Research (PAR). This article describes a qualitative method that was developed by a non-profit practitioner working for a local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and a researcher from a land-grant university in Manhattan, Kansas to operationalise a neighbourhood revitalisation framework with a community conversation series called Front Porch Conversations. The qualitative method developed by the university-nonprofit partnership –called the Front Porch Development Procedure – serves as both a PAR-informed mode of inquiry and an ABCD-informed mode of development. This method provides an example of how university-community partnerships can approach changemaking in novel ways by considering ABCD and PAR approaches.

Asset-based community development in an online context: Crafting collective experience into an asset of expertise

Samantha Close, Chiarra Lohr — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 12:38:12 +1100

This article analyses a case study for which an asset-based community development (ABCD) orientation was used to conduct community-based research (CBR). The community in question is, unusually, a digital community comprised of people who sell handmade crafts and vintage goods through digital marketplace platforms. This project, headed by a team of one academic and one community organiser, demonstrates a process by which CBR can be initiated by a community itself in order to effect change in the structural inequalities with which they are faced. To do so, we argue that community members’ expertise is a key asset, both individually and when collectivised through the research process. Involving community members in research on this basis helps change the way they look at themselves and their situation, and strengthens the bonds of this virtual community.

Faith-based community-academic partnerships: An asset-based community development strategy for social change

Linda Coley, Elizabeth Stryon Howze, Kyle McManamy — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 12:39:32 +1100

Faith-based community anchor institutions are important collaborators in community development. They are respected social innovators who deploy their assets for the common good, especially good works aimed towards helping marginalised communities and those in poverty. More recently, the pace of faith-based social innovation and community development leadership has slowed substantially (Jones 2016). Seeking renewed imagination, will and ability for asset-based social innovation among faith-based communities, the Ormond Center at Duke University’s Divinity School has developed a curriculum, based on a human ecology framework, that engages faith-based ‘community- academic partnered participatory research’ (Chen et. al. 2006) towards social change.

Our approach starts by working with congregations to discover community-level barriers to thriving in their local context. We then walk alongside faith-based communities to identify strengths-based, relationship-centred opportunities to collaboratively integrate congregational assets with community assets towards positive social change. This curriculum has been tested by the Ormond Center with several diverse, multi- denominational congregations in communities located in North Carolina and Virginia. Its potential to encourage asset-based community development for social good is supported by tangible evidence. This article takes the reader through the process of changing a semester-long graduate course, designed by the academy for the academy, to a six-week course that walks alongside faith- based lay leaders and pastors in their local context, towards asset-based community development for positive social change. Five viable asset-based solutions to community-level social issues are shared, and lessons learned are offered.

The essential role of ABCD in developing two community engagement frameworks for supporting Latinx students

Marisol Morales — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 10:53:14 +1100

Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) is an important framework to understand and develop community-engagement experiences for Latinx students, especially at Hispanic Serving Institutions that play an important role in educating Latinx students. This article presents the conceptual findings of a research project that looked at the community-engagement experiences of Latinx students at an HSI. Drawing on in-depth interviews and critical frameworks for engagement, two models were developed: Prism of Liberatory Engagement and Asset Based Critical Engagement. These frameworks are presented as ways to (1) understand and differentiate the service learning experiences of Latinx students and (2) provide a framework for faculty and Community Engagement Professionals (CEPs) to situate their courses and community relationships, and work from an asset-based philosophy of engagement. The Prism of Liberatory Engagement gives explicit attention to the themes (awareness, agency and action; positive interaction with faculty; engaging sameness, and engagement for uplift) and the significant factors (personal/familial trauma, constraints and previous experience with service) that shape the community-engagement experiences of Latinx students. The Asset Based Critical Engagement model presented in this article provides a theoretical asset-based framework for critical pedagogy for service learning and community engagement that can be vital for institutions, in and outside of the United States, which are serving an increasingly diverse student population.

‘Can you put down your mission and plug into mine?’ How place-based initiatives leverage collaborations with academic institutions to enhance their ABCD and CBR potential

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 12:40:58 +1100

Place-Based Initiatives (PBIs) involve efforts to mobilise and coordinate local resources, services and expertise across multiple organisations and sectors in order to strengthen the social, structural, physical and economic conditions of historically disinvested neighbourhoods. While promising, these initiatives have had some documented challenges, and some are leveraging partnerships with academic institutions to address those challenges. In this article, we explore perspectives of leaders and staff from three PBI organisations in Charlotte, NC to better understand the benefits of PBI-academic partnerships and the conditions under which they are most effective. Thematic analysis of 23 semi-structured interviews revealed that PBIs leverage partnerships with academic institutions to accomplish two key goals. First, these partnerships stimulate asset- based community development (ABCD) by connecting community organisations and neighbourhood residents with academic resources and by strengthening PBI service delivery. Second, some partnerships give rise to community-based research efforts that help address external accountability challenges and inform PBI programming. The findings also illuminated several pitfalls in academic-PBI partnerships, sometimes rooted in conflicting priorities and approaches of academic researchers and non-profit practitioners. Finally, insights delineate key recommendations for improving PBI-academic collaborations, including countering academic exploitation by plugging into PBIs’ mission and respecting PBI expertise.

Perspectives from community partnerships in three diverse higher education contexts

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 11:03:09 +1100

Asset-based Community Development (ABCD) approaches in higher education have the potential to benefit a diversity of higher education settings and partners, but they can also present challenges and opportunities for growth in higher education institutions. Co- curricular community engagement and academic service-learning programs may struggle to balance the broader political and logistical constraints imposed by the university with equitable, long-term, community-guided relationships that reflect a genuine commitment to ABCD. Extension programs may face difficulty engaging community members and maintaining their commitment to the long-term nature of ABCD in an environment where ABCD is not universally utilised. Although these challenges may seem daunting, partners in all three contexts can draw on a wealth of ABCD tools and resources, including case studies like those anchoring this discussion, in order to answer the question: How can ABCD approaches be utilised most effectively in higher education contexts to address challenges and improve outcomes? Specifically, can an asset-based orientation help position community participants as peer ‘experts’ alongside their academic partners, share power and authority in the collaboration? If so, how? If not, why not? The authors explore these questions using a case study methodology, allowing for nuanced portraits of three different contexts depicting interactions among community and university partners seeking to ground their collaborations in the mobilisation of assets, gifts and strengths. This article also seeks to identify key lessons learned in each setting of the three participating United States universities – the public, four-year research institution, the private religious university and the land-grant college/cooperative extension in order to make recommendations on using ABCD to build and nurture academic-community partnerships that are generalisable across other contexts.

Formation of a transdisciplinary community of practice in rural areas, with an interactive database of co-created knowledge: A case study in Noto, Japan

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 12:42:24 +1100

Many rural areas suffer from severe depopulation, and the absence of a university is one reason for outmigration. Where research and education are valued, however, such rural areas can attract scholars and students visiting from universities and other external institutions. Scholarly outputs of research, such as research articles and project reports, particularly those from community-based research (CBR), can themselves become an asset for use by local communities. We consider that CBR can contribute to asset-based community development (ABCD) when a transdisciplinary community of practice (TDCOP) emerges and drives the processes of collaborative creation and use of the knowledge. A particularly critical mechanism, which is currently lacking, is to allow the local community to collect knowledge outputs and make them easily available to interested actors within and outside of the community. We assume that a core tool in this mechanism is an interactive database. It can be equipped with a user interface, allowing enjoyable and active searches, and possibly a mechanism by which users themselves can contribute to gradual development of the database. We formed a study group of researchers and practitioners to conduct a case study in the Noto region of Japan. We identified the existing assets in Noto, including the knowledge created through CBR, and then collected and shared our own experiences and practices, as well as lessons learned from other regions in Japan, to explore the principles of designing a database. A CBR database should not only be a static inventory of past research, but also capable of facilitating new cycles of knowledge co-creation. With a comprehensive and easily accessible inventory of knowledge in place, we conclude that there is high potential in enabling CBR itself to be an asset, which can help achieve ABCD in rural communities.

Reflections on evaluators' role in community needs assessment

Sandra M Sheppard, Elyse Fuerst — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 12:43:39 +1100

Evaluators play a critical role in shaping evaluation practices, but in practice this can be challenging to accomplish in ways that are productive as well as healing. This article discusses evaluation practices in the context of a project commissioned as needs-based to assist with community recovery after a racially motivated mass shooting in an urban neighbourhood marginalised by crime, income, race and unemployment. Development of an unmet needs survey included incorporating initial data collected by empowered community leaders with subsequent data collected by evaluators through focus groups and surveys. Evaluators then analysed and organised the data into a report that community leaders could submit to local and state officials. Identifying details were omitted out of an abundance of concern and respect for the privacy of the communities and constituents that were directly and indirectly affected by the tragedy that inspired this discourse.

This article presents a reflective discussion between evaluators on whether or not it would have been appropriate to suggest integrating an assets-based community development (ABCD) approach within a commissioned community needs assessment. It also covers the evaluators’ process of using a critical lens to retrospectively assess the appropriateness and effectiveness of adopting an asset-based community development (ABCD) approach. The discussion emphasises the importance of acknowledging and engaging with the diverse perspectives held by the wider evaluation community. It recognises, too, the value of ongoing dialogue and debate to encourage evaluators to critically reflect on the appropriateness and implications of integrating a variety of approaches within community needs assessments. This article also explores how the authors ‘made space’ for this conversation, including aspects of content analysis and consideration of crucial conversations, parameters and ethics, in the hope of further stimulating discussion and fostering a decision-making process that would encompass a range of viewpoints, ultimately driving more effective and responsive community development practices.