This book offers a fascinating reflective account of community work and adult education in a small Derbyshire town from 1969 till 1972. Written in 1976, drawing on memory, notes, published reports, community newspapers and other documents, it has some distance from the actual events. Yet it is very much a narrative of the 1970s. This was a time when poverty had been ârediscoveredâ and community-based âsolutionsâ were being developed and tested. This work in Derbyshire was happening at the same time as the first wave of âexperimentalâ national Community Development Projects (CDPs) began in 1970, contributing over the following years to a highly-politicised structural analysis of the causes of poverty, and a radical pessimism about the role of community development in tackling the inequalities caused by global processes of de-industrialisation (Banks & Carpenter, 2017). Both themes are articulated in this book.
In bringing to light this story of everyday community education from the early 1970s, Colin Kirkwood presents a valuable account of the issues facing people living in small towns at a time of social and economic change, and the challenges confronted by the local authority and voluntary sector workers whose job it was to âdevelopâ those communities. Although historically and geographically located, many of the dilemmas faced by community development workers are perennial. We see these dilemmas played out in Staveley as Colin and his colleague Rob struggle to mobilise local interest, mediate conflicts, and Colin himself becomes increasingly aware of gender issues, bemoans the paternalistic workings of the local Labour Party and critiques the incorporation of local working class councillors.
A central feature of the book is a detailed analysis of several issues of a newly-established community newspaper. This provides a record not only of community events, divergent opinions and literary contributions, but a structure within which Colin can hang his often critical commentary on the details of peopleâs lives and attitudes in the context of local and national politics. Community newspapers were a key feature of community development work at this time â used as a vehicle for building a sense of community, mobilising people around public issues, and promoting campaigns.
The 1970s spawned a significant body of politically-inspired community development literature. However, this book is unique in offering a blend of political analysis of events and critical discussion of ideologies and methods of community work, alongside analytical reflections on peopleâs consciousness/language, the mistakes made and lessons learned by the author and others. It can also, perhaps, offer lessons for the UK today, in a time of economic crisis and austerity, when public sector cuts have led to a decline in local authority community work and adult education, with increasing reliance on volunteers and the third sector to fill gaps left by the state. Currently, there is a pressing need for community workers and adult educators with the critical commitment, political acumen and moral courage to challenge the harsh, victim-blaming climate and social injustices of the second decade of the twenty-first century. This requires new approaches and techniques, such as using digital as opposed to print media; working with looser networks rather than stable communities; and negotiating super-diversity rather than seeking homogeneity. Yet the core values and skills of community development work remain very similar.
Colinâs Freirean approach, already visible in this account of his work in Staveley and developed subsequently through work with his partner Gerri and other colleagues in Scotland (Kirkwood & Kirkwood, 1989), offers a broad framework for conceptualising the workings of oppression and its resistance through critical education and action. This is as necessary today as it was in the 1970s, as a counter-balance to the continuing dominance of technical, depoliticised, service-delivery-focussed community development that leaves fundamental injustices unnamed and unanalysed. Colin speaks in rather Freirean tones of his pessimistic analysis of the potential for community-based radical social change, alongside his continuing and apparently contradictory hope for a better future. This book invites us to follow the historical trajectory of nascent trends in the 1970s to the full-blown globalised and neo-liberal world of the 2010s, and hence to understand our present predicament a little better. In the words of Paulo Freire in his posthumously published letter âEducation and Hopeâ, it highlights the importance of maintaining an understanding of âhistory as possibilityâ, and engaging in âa permanent process of hope-filled searchâ (Freire, 2004, pp. 100â101).
References
Banks, S., & Carpenter, M. (2017). âResearching the local politics and practices of radical Community Development Projects in 1970s Britainâ. Community Development Journal, 52(2), 226â246.
Freire, P. (2004) Pedagogy of indignation. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
Kirkwood, G., & Kirkwood, C. (1989). Living adult education: Freire in Scotland. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.