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This chapter develops a community perspective on entrepreneurialization and demonstrates the epistemic value of community-based analysis. It focuses on the particularities of socio-economic settings that shape the emergence of social enterprises and allows for a consideration of diverse groups of actors beyond entrepreneurs.

The chapter draws from a literature review on UK policies around social enterprise and an ethnographic study of a deprived community in North-West England. It provides an in-depth account of how competition for scarce funds and the new hope around entrepreneurialism are negotiated and translated into action by policy actors in one local community.

The review contextualizes the evolution of social enterprise in the United Kingdom and highlights the need for grounded analysis of the effects of policies. A range of themes emerge from the ethnographic case: a misalignment between social workers’ and beneficiaries’ expectations and interests; a tendency to shift from holistic welfare to narrow, time-limited interventions; the importance of spatiality for issues of deprivation; and imbalances in the flows of money and attention between different communities.

The chapter questions the emphasis placed upon social enterprise as a source of innovation. The suggested focus on community redirects scholarly debate to the most important group of actors: the socially, politically, or economically excluded target groups of social innovations.

This chapter contributes to our understanding of the roles being played by social enterprises in a community and raises questions about their value as a vehicle of policy and of innovation.

The research is based on the analysis of recent experiences of participative processes in the reuse and maintenance of contexts considered as “urban waste,” focusing on their role in smart sustainable development processes. The recognition of discarded urban spaces/buildings as regeneration opportunities opens up new perspectives on the communities’ commitments and responsibilities, in new governance models. These experiences, better known as “commons,” highlight the active role of communities in establishing new unconventional forms of value creation and production based on circular processes and interdependences between city and communities. Circularization and synergies are the fundamental precondition for smart sustainable development. Assuming the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach as general framework, the phenomenon of commons represents an opportunity to make it operational through an integrated methodology based on the recovery of the environment built according to an inclusive and hybrid approach, configured by culture and shared with local communities. In this perspective, this contribution proposes an evaluation framework not only to monitor the results and impacts produced by these experiences, but also to stimulate and improve awareness, self-learning and self-evaluation processes of the actors involved in regeneration processes toward a smart sustainable development.

Service learning is a pedagogical approach that primarily focuses upon achieving student learning outcomes through meaningful community engagement. While service-learning pedagogies provide “service” to community, the view of community partners from a deficit-oriented perspective can render service learning ineffective and, at worst, potentially harmful to the community served. This chapter presents a course that uses food as a civic lens through which to engage community, instructors, and students in CRITICAL-SERVICE-LEARNING where systemic inequities that contribute to community needs are focused upon, community partners are co-creators of course design, outcomes to student learning and community benefits are equitably considered, and collective knowledge and experience of stakeholders is valued.

The importance of community-based organizations to support relief works in the aftermath of disasters is widely recognized as indispensable in providing quickly the needed help for affected populations (Bajek, Matsuda, & Okada, 2008; Nagasaka, 2008; Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche, & Pfefferbaum, 2008; Shaw & Goda, 2004; Suzuki, 2006). Although communities’ involvement in rescue operations is essential, their role in rehabilitation and future disaster preparedness activities is equally important in the process of forming a disaster-resilient society (Nagasaka, 2008). Furthermore, the level of interaction between local authorities and communities within different phases (preparedness, relief, and rehabilitation) of the disaster management cycle requires attention to effectively implement community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR).

The purpose of this chapter is to critically examine the extent to which oil multinational corporations (MNCs) can be both money makers and peace makers in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria, and to consider its implication for the role of business in conflict mitigation in resource-rich African countries.

The chapter presents a theoretical analysis based on secondary data and empirical research.

There is now an emerging consensus that business can be peace makers and money makers in developing countries as part of their social responsibility. However, the tendency to explore business-conflict linkage largely from a business perspective and to see conflict as an “incidence” that business has to respond to, as opposed to a “dynamic process” that is a function of the breakdown of stakeholder relationship, limits our understanding of the relationship between business and conflict. Focusing on the Niger Delta in Nigeria, it is argued that the contradictory tension inherent in the peace making efforts of oil MNCs and the nature of their core business activities (i.e., oil extraction) limits the incentives and undermines the capacity of oil MNCs to be peace makers.

The chapter contributes a critical perspective to the literature on business and conflict informed by nearly two decades of empirical research undertaken by the author in Africa. It analyzes how contextual factors in resource-rich African countries, previously neglected in the literature, influence both the willingness and ability of business to contribute to peace. It concludes by discussing the theoretical and practical implications for the role of business in conflict zones.

The civil wars between North and South Sudan have created one of the largest populations of displaced people in the world. This chapter introduces an ethnographic study with South Sudanese men who have resettled in Adelaide, Australia as former refugees and critically evaluates how they conceptualize and respond to trauma to highlight their agency and capacities to recover from difficult circumstances. The participants often used the term “slowly slowly” as an expression of working through adverse experiences to reduce the risk of retraumatization and as an approach to integrate into a new society. This chapter unpacks this phrase to highlight the complexities of conducting research with refugee communities and reinforces the need to maintain reflexivity, build interpersonal relationships and incorporate reciprocity to further consider the contested perspectives on trauma, resettlement, and recovery.

This chapter came about, after five years of working with the Ngadjuri community on speculative student cultural centre designs. Ideation for those conversations and studio-based interactions, in addition to time and cultural tours spent on Country, revealed a variety of opinions and hopes that exist within the Ngadjuri community for a place to celebrate their cultural heritage. This heritage has an incredible history, and the idea of a cultural centre has been topical since the late Uncle Vince Copley Senior worked with other Ngadjuri community members such as Robert Rigney, on Country and in an advocacy role for Ngadjuri more than 30 years ago. This series of yarnings from a two-part transcription process re-awakens those desires of Elders now passed. The transcriptions are complemented with literature around yarning as a research methodology that delivers current, immediate, and insightful personal thoughts, although only as personal as the lead yarner wishes to share. In addition, the literature contextualises the key themes of which the yarnings divulge. Research has indicated how yarning interactions and interrelationships create a unique dynamic between the researcher and the community members. It is these rich experiences where knowledge is shared in a two-way exchange that is noteworthy for the galleries, libraries, archives, and museums [GLAM] sector. GLAM sector priorities must implement policy to pursue future Indigenisation of their epistemological methods and ontological systems. To address any future data curation of Ngadjuri cultural heritage materials on Country or in GLAM, hearing the personal stories and desires seemed timely and necessary.

This chapter describes a particular course that was undertaken as part of a partnership between three community institutions: a classroom of college undergraduate learners, residents of a local homeless outreach center, and the members of a neighboring social justice oriented Christian community. The project was an interdisciplinary endeavor, facilitated by the authors who represent the humanities, specifically Religious Studies and Education. The students in the course represented a cross-section of the institution where the authors teach: various majors, both declared and undeclared; students from different enrollment years; various ages; and mixed race and ethnicity. The first part of this chapter addresses a theoretical framework related to community-based learning and service-learning related to the role of such partnerships in higher education with specific focus on a particular course. The second part addresses the significance of the social change model and purposeful student self-reflection within such partnerships as a way to enhance student learning. The final part of the chapter includes an evaluation of the community collaboration with respect to process and student learning.

Towns and cities across Canada face rapidly changing economic circumstances and many are turning to a variety of strategies, including tourism, to provide stability in their communities. Community Economic Development (CED) has become an accepted form of economic development, with recognition that such planning benefits from a more holistic approach and community participation. However, much of why particular strategies are chosen, what process the community undertakes to implement those choices and how success is measured is not fully understood. Furthermore, CED lacks a developed theoretical basis from which to examine these questions. By investigating communities that have chosen to develop their tourism potential through the use of murals, these various themes can be explored. There are three purposes to this research: (1) to acquire an understanding of the “how” and the “why” behind the adoption and diffusion of mural-based tourism as a CED strategy in rural communities; (2) to contribute to the emerging theory of CED by linking together theories of rural geography, rural change and sustainability, and rural tourism; and (3) to contribute to the development of a framework for evaluating the potential and success of tourism development within a CED process.

Two levels of data collection and analysis were employed in this research. Initially, a survey of Canadian provincial tourism guides was conducted to determine the number of communities in Canada that market themselves as having a mural-based tourism attraction (N=32). A survey was sent to these communities, resulting in 31 responses suitable for descriptive statistical analysis, using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). A case study analysis of the 6 Saskatchewan communities was conducted through in-depth, in person interviews with 40 participants. These interviews were subsequently analyzed utilizing a combined Grounded Theory (GT) and Content Analysis approach.

The surveys indicated that mural development spread within a relatively short time period across Canada from Chemainus, British Columbia. Although tourism is often the reason behind mural development, increasing community spirit and beautification were also cited. This research demonstrates that the reasons this choice is made and the successful outcome of that choice is often dependent upon factors related to community size, proximity to larger populations and the economic (re)stability of existing industry. Analysis also determined that theories of institutional thickness, governance, embeddedness and conceptualizations of leadership provide a body of literature that offers an opportunity to theorize the process and outcomes of CED in rural places while at the same time aiding our understanding of the relationship between tourism and its possible contribution to rural sustainability within a Canadian context. Finally, this research revealed that both the CED process undertaken and the measurement of success are dependent upon the desired outcomes of mural development. Furthermore, particular attributes of rural places play a critical role in how CED is understood, defined and carried out, and how successes, both tangible and intangible, are measured.