Abstract

CANO HILA, Ana Belén  and  GARCIA CABEZA, Marisol. Community Action Policies in Urban Peripheries: Problems of Transferibility. Gest. polít. pública [online]. 2012, vol.21, n.spe, pp.131-157. ISSN 1405-1079.

Large European cities have experienced in the last decades important transformations. One of them has been the increase in social vulnerability and the weakening of community relations concentrated in some neighbourhoods. The methodology of community action presents itself with two objectives: to reconstruct community networks among the social actors operating in neighbourhoods, and to improve life conditions of the residents involved. To achieve both objectives two things are crucial: the collaboration between social agents (administration, professionals and civil society) and mobilization of citizens. Peripheries of large cities are sites where these methodologies emerged, but at the same time can be the context in which citizens' mobilization becomes problematic. Some explanations of this difficulty are the processes of social fragmentation and the processes of invasion-succession that constrain social organization. The relations between social actors involved in the process of community reconstruction are seen as particularly important in the debates around community action. The lack of equilibrium in the distribution of these actors' responsibilities and roles leads to conditions such as the professionalization of the community building process, the disengagement of the community, and institutional coercion. In this article we argue that a basic tension emerges between the objectives of community action and some processes that contribute to the community's fragmentation. This paradox can be explained by the excessive professional and institutional leadership and by a definition of social cohesion that overlooks social conflict.

Keywords : social conditions and problems; urban conditions; social movements.

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