Politics of Community

This was a lecture group presentation for the HBSE 350 course, we did with my peers at West Virginia University in 2014. We were doing community profile and also gave back to the community some hygiene  goodies and toiletries to homeless shelter.

SUMMARY Anthropologists studying the Andean community politics have increasingly emphasised the role of pragmatic, informal 'vernacular' political strategies in achieving material and political empowerment of the poor. However, while the concept of vernacular politics marks an advancement over binary and often polarised discussions of the role of local communities in development processes, studies have not fully explored the full range of implications of vernacular strategies on development processes. While researchers have demonstrated the substantial agency that local community actors have to influence development processes, the extent to which this influence effectively resists or reinforces the logic of public policy implementation has not been studied. This article explores the techniques used by rural communities in their interactions with public institutions in rural Bolivia. It shows that community organisations' vernacular political strategies have mixed outcomes: on the one hand, they allow the rural poor to assert their own agendas vis-à-vis the state so that they can benefit from public spending, while on the other hand, their tactics have the potential to entrench the influence of local power brokers and perpetuate inefficient uses of public funds.

Theorists have critiqued the individualism at the heart of Sen’s capabilities approach, and have advocated the concept of “collective capabilities” to better understand the role of social institutions in influencing human flourishing and freedom. However, the extent to which collective capabilities are complementary to, or in tension with individual ones has been under-researched. This paper explores the relationship between collective and individual capabilities by analysing the social institutions of indigenous peasants living in the Bolivian Altiplano, a relatively collectivist society, considering the roles of three key social institutions: village-level political organizations, social activities, and Evangelical churches. It argues that the strength of institutions to contribute to both individual and collective well-being often depends on their ability to use coercive instruments to override individual freedoms. Therefore, while the data support the claim that individualist approaches to well-being and freedom are inadequate, it also calls for more dynamic understandings of the ways in which social institutions enable and constrain people’s capabilities.

The UHI Centre for Remote and Rural Studies convened a roundtable event in November 2010 that brought
together practitioners, policymakers and academics from Scotland, the UK and internationally. The aims were:
(i) to explore the implications of existing Scottish, UK and international research for the ownership of assets
by communities; and (ii) identify regional research priorities and the key players in taking a potential research agenda forward.
This paper provides an overview of key areas of discussion and debate.

Keywords:
Community assets; renewable energy; social justice; learning partnerships; regional policy; politics of community.