An online event organised by the Community Development Journal with the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action, Durham University

The Community Development Journal and Centre for Social Justice and Community Action are pleased to announce an online event to be held on Zoom to launch a special issue of the journal on ‘ethical issues in community development’.

The event will be introduced by special issue co-editors, Sarah Banks (Durham University, UK), Pradeep Narayanan (Praxis, India) and Lynda Shevellar (University of Queensland, Australia). Many of the contributors of the 11 articles will be present, highlighting some of the ethical challenges in community development around the world - from respecting local norms while tackling conflict in the Lake Chad region, to analysing neighbourhood opposition to people with disabilities in Lithuania, and developing community-based ethical contracts in the UK.

Ethics is about matters of rights, responsibilities, harms and benefits. It draws attention to the intersection between human agency and the structural forces that shape the context for community development. It also foregrounds the cognitive and emotional work involved in identifying the ethical issues embedded in the politics and practice of community development, in deciding what is right and in being a just, compassionate and trustworthy practitioner. The aim of the special issue is to examine community development work specifically through an ethical lens.

The event will start with a brief outline of the importance of focusing on ethics in community development, offering perspectives from the special issue co-editors and contributors.

We will then break-up into facilitated small groups to discuss several provocations linked to the themes of the special issue. The aim of the groups is to give the chance for participants to share and debate ideas and views on these topics:

1. Community development is fundamentally unethical as it colonises local values and practices.

2. Ethics should not be taught as a separate subject in community development education, as it is embedded in all subjects and should pervade the curriculum.

3. It is imperative that community development workers always challenge injustice and oppression in daily practice, regardless of how difficult this may be.

4. In community-based participatory research between community members and academics/professional researchers, the power always lies with the latter.

Please register here via Eventbrite. After registration you will be sent a Zoom link.

Please check your time zone. 9.00 UTC/GMT (London, Lisbon) is 10.00 Europe, 14.30 New Delhi, 19.00 Brisbane, 20.00 Sydney, for example.

Ethical issues in community development