The UK community anchor model and its challenges for community sector theory and practice

James Henderson and Christopher McWilliams
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James Henderson: University of Edinburgh, UK
Christopher McWilliams: Heriot Watt University, UK

Urban Studies, 2017, vol. 54, issue 16, 3826-3842

Abstract: The growing policy focus since the 1970s in Scotland, the UK and internationally on ‘community’, community development and community ownership and enterprise has facilitated a certain growth of the community sector and therefore of concern for related discussions of theory and practice. This paper positions this turn to community within the shifting global political economic context, in particular the rolling out of the neoliberal state internationally from the 1980s and a related urban crisis management of structural inequality (Brenner and Theodore, 2002). By focusing on the emergence of community anchor organisations – understood in the UK context as multi-purpose, local community-led organisations – within Scottish and UK policy-making since the 2000s, the central dilemma for critical community sector theory and practice of sustaining a local egalitarian vision and practice (Pearce, 2003) given this neoliberal context is explored. A Scottish urban community anchor provides an illustration of this challenge for theory and practice and of how it can be re-considered through discussions of ‘progressive mutualism’ (Pearce, 2009) and ‘resilience, re-working and resistance’ (Cumbers, 2010; Katz, 2004).

Keywords: community anchor organisations; community sector theory and practice; neoliberal urban social policy; progressive mutualism and community ownership; Scottish and UK public policy; 社区主力组织ã€; ç¤¾åŒºéƒ¨é—¨ç †è®ºä¸Žå®žè·µã€; 新自由主义城市社会政策ã€; æ¸ è¿›å¼ äº’æƒ å’Œç¤¾åŒºä¸»äººç¿ ç²¾ç¥žã€; è‹ æ ¼å…°ä¸Žè‹±å›½å…¬å…±æ”¿ç­– (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:54:y:2017:i:16:p:3826-3842

DOI: 10.1177/0042098016684733

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