The iterative relationship between local and national where community development is deployed to resist polarisation and division

Community development theorists advocate for its use in responding to societal polarisation, but how it is mobilised is less well understood. Different modes of community intervention should be considered. Extant studies examine where local responses are engendered by a contentious event which politicises one community or where communities generally mobilise to build resilience to divisive politics. This paper considers both scenarios in examining the place of community development in the discourses of how local communities resist polarisation and which modes of community development are revealed.

A set of polarising dynamics (including ‘race’, religion, migration) were identified through a literature review and utilised in a media analysis of 1200+ news reports about local-scale polarisation. Twelve mini-case studies were then undertaken which included semi-structured interviews, followed by three detailed ethnographic case studies in the USA, England and Wales. This paper focuses on the Welsh case study.

Findings reveal a repurposing of community development in new civil society settings to overcome societal division which can be understood as a contemporary iteration of its historical undulations. A complex degree of community organising was exhibited engaging hyper-local communities, a city-wide strategic partnership and national bodies. This paper encourages us to theorise about the iterative relationship between seismic politicised events and subsequent community organising. This enables us to rethink the local-national relationship, recognising multi-layered structures for resilience. A practical implication is the emergence of a civil society model for resisting polarisation which combines priming communities to collaborate around cohesion and guidance when contentious politicised events occur.