Cultivating place knowledge
As a community development practitioner I find myself drawn to place as a site for social change. Places are natural sites for community. The proximity of place brings humans together at the street, neighbourhood and town level – creating opportunities for social connection, mutual support and collective action. The connection people feel to ‘their place’ creates a vested interest in wanting to improve it leading to lots many forms informal and formal association that contribute to the well-being of those who live there – sporting associations, neighbourhood groups, men’s sheds, book clubs, and environmental groups.
This second instalment of Place Musings explores the foundational groundwork necessary for effective community development work in place-based contexts.
Foundational pillars for place-based practice
If you work in community development, you’ve probably been in a position at some point in your career where you‘ve landed a job and found yourself in a community that you really don’t know much about. You then face the daunting task of navigating this complex and an unfamiliar landscape to develop solutions to really complex social challenges – homelessness, loneliness, youth disengagement, mental health. It can be challenging to know where to start!
In my experience there are two foundational pillars of practice that underpin our ability to navigate the complexity of communities to achieve positive outcomes. These are our knowledge of place and the relationships we have in place.
This article will focus on the first pillar – 'place knowledge' – and will be followed by a subsequent piece focusing on nurturing relationships in place.
Cultivating place knowledge
Having worked across across quite a few different places over my twenty years in community development, I have learned, often the hard way, that what works in one place won’t necessarily work in the next. Over time, I have come to value the importance of stepping back, dedicating time to listen, learn, and reflect.
No matter how long I’ve worked in a place, there has always been more to learn. When we stop actively learning about communities, we cease being effective. We rely our own assumptions about what will work in a place – often based on our own prior experience rather than the lived experience of those who have a much more intimate knowledge of place than we do.
There are many things we can learn about the communities that we work with and their uniqueness that can help us achieve better outcomes. In building my knowledge of community I’ve found it helpful to explore some of the following questions:
Place knowledge helps us achieve outcomes
Growing our place knowledge helps tailor our approaches to the place context, enabling the identification and utilisation of local assets and resources. Embedding a focus on ‘place knowledge’ into our work practices helps to:
• Inspire curiosity about the communities we work in.
• Create awareness of different types of knowledge needed to navigate communities effectively.
• Explore the different ways of learning about the communities we work in.
• Apply place knowledge to guide decisions and enhance practice.
How can we be more intentional about building our place knowledge?
We can start by approaching our work with a community development mindset:
• Leave our assumptions behind, take off the expert hat, and acknowledge that there are many things about communities that we don’t know.
• Value the expertise within the community and learn from them about ‘what works here’.
We can embed the following practices into our work, creating opportunities for ongoing learning and knowledge building:
• Being present and engaged – observe, ask questions that build understanding and listen well.
• Build relationships with ‘local knowledge brokers’ – people who have deep knowledge and connection with the community whom you can learn from.
• Embed reflection into your practice. Why didn’t that work? What more can we learn?
• Use research & data to build understanding of local demographics, issues, and trends.
Stay tuned…
By intentionally building place knowledge, community development practitioners can tailor their approaches to specific contexts, identify and harness local assets and resources, and ultimately work towards the goal of strengthening connectivity, building resilience, and empowering communities to address their own needs. Stay tuned for the next piece, where we will explore the second pillar – 'Place Relationships.'
