Peter Westoby

Written with a reflective posture, guided by concepts from the critical tradition of community development – Participatory Development Practice (PDP), and aligned with Freire’s Popular Education, the article offers insights into research undertaken with Australian community-based practitioners and citizens in neighbourhood centre and Landcare contexts. By engaging in workshops to develop knowledge and skills of mezzo-level circle work of community development, and by employing the Spiral Model of Community Education, the article points to the importance of transformative dialogue and learning. Our findings support the vision of community development groups, when given opportunities to have hegemonic ideas disrupted, can develop structural analyses that lead to collective action.

At 57 years old, I recently felt the need to clear out my dusty and overwhelmed bookshelves. I removed 250 books over a weekend. Plenty of my community development books were rejected. Yet, this substantive book stayed. I will, of course, explain why – but the word “substantial” says a fair bit. In my supporting or mentoring role with some community development (CD) academics at Murdoch University, Australia, I am often asked some version of “what books should I be reading to get up to speed?” I’ve got an answer of three to five books, and this is one of them. Substantive, but with a breadth and depth that warrants reading. With those comments aside, I want to pay gratitude to the incredible work of the three editors and other contributors. You have all done a great service to the community that makes up this “practice.”