Navigating Power Relations in Community-Driven Development: An Exploration of Constructive Work

Babita Bhatt () and Israr Qureshi ()
Additional contact information
Babita Bhatt: Research School of Management, Australian National University
Israr Qureshi: Research School of Management, Australian National University

A chapter in Social Entrepreneurship and Gandhian Thoughts in the Post-COVID World, 2023, pp 49-65 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Community-driven development (CDD) is gaining momentum as the challenges of the top-down economic model are realized. CDD is based on the assumptions that designing and implementing entrepreneurial solutions with and by the communities could enhance efficiency in resource allocation, build capabilities and skills of the members, and lead to transformative social change. Community-based social enterprises are an example of CDD. While important, CDD is also criticized for its problematic conceptualization of community and for overlooking power dynamics in social relations. Critics argue that programs designed and implemented by and with the communities run the risk of exacerbating existing power relations if the social context is overlooked. Therefore, a key question that needs to be asked is how to navigate power relations in CDD. In this chapter, we discuss constructive work as a strategy to navigate power relations in the communities. Constructive work is a prefigurative strategy proposed by Gandhi to create a new just social order while implicitly challenging the old unjust social order. It involves the construction of social relations, practices, systems, concrete structures, and processes to resist oppression and create self-reliant communities. We provide examples to show how constructive work can be applied by scholars and practitioners.

Keywords: Community enterprises; Prefiguration; Dignity of labor; Commoning; Cultural temporality; Means-ends equivalence; Proactive long-term orientation; Sahyogi Mitra (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:isbchp:978-981-99-4008-0_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789819940080

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-99-4008-0_3

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in India Studies in Business and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().