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This study aims to explore how key stakeholders and recipients of local food access programs operate strategically to meet individual and community food needs, enhance experiences of dignity and promote social justice. The study of a fragmented community food system highlights the connections between micro and meso dimensions of food access, illustrating how people work around food system limitations to access food.

Using qualitative in-depth interviews with food assistance managers, workers, volunteers and recipients, this study examines the period before the implementation of a centralized community-based food access initiative in a mid-sized, rural Oklahoma college town with a high rate of food insecurity. This study asks: What are community members’ experiences in a fragmented food assistance system? In what ways do individuals use everyday resistance and workarounds to actively promote experiences of dignity and social justice in food access spaces?

Those involved in sites of community food access build important networks to share information and engage in negotiation and trade to gain access to useful food resources. As forms of everyday resistance, such practices encourage co-construction of dignity and social justice in stigmatized spaces.

This research contributes to literature examining micro- and meso-level community dynamics that inform agency, dignity and social justice in community food access approaches.

Purpose – Medicaid funding for long-term services and supports (LTSS) is a key avenue for community access for people with disabilities and others. Between 1997 and 2009, the boundaries of community access were redrawn and redefined with the introduction of a series of 13 bills to change how Medicaid requires states to fund LTSS. Although they did not successfully pass into law, their presence is felt in the language of the Community First Choice (CFC) Option, part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010. This chapter documents and analyzes the changes in the concept of community access as reflected across these bills and the CFC.

Methodology – The text of these 13 bills and the CFC were compared with attention to structure, order, and meaning. Documents were hand coded and electronically searched. Codes were entered into atlas.ti for comparison and analysis.

Findings – Four significant changes in the conceptualization of community access emerged: (1) who deserves access to community, (2) what community access entails, (3) why people deserve access to community, and (4) how community access should be organized. With the exception of the reasons why people deserve access to community, the expanded concept of community access illustrated across these bills is reflected in the text of CFC.

Originality/value of the chapter – This chapter contributes to the limited literature that documents and analyzes the historical development of community access across policy documents. In addition, it highlights the relevance of incremental analysis to understanding social change through the legislative process.

The phrase “digital divide” has been applied to the gap that exists in most countries between those with ready access to the tools of information and communication technologies (ICTs), and those without such access or skills. This may be because of socio‐economic or geographical factors, educational, attitudinal and generational factors, or because of physical disabilities. The paper reviews recent research concerning the digital divide in New Zealand, and the factors that alienate people from enjoying the benefits of information technology and participation in the knowledge economy. While socio‐economic factors affect use of ICTs by urban Maori and Pacific Island communities, and rural communities are affected by inadequate telecommunications infrastructure, rural Maori are even more disadvantaged. The paper examines strategies used in the USA and the UK at national and regional levels to address similar issues, including the use of libraries to reduce the digital divide, and compares these with New Zealand initiatives, to identify positive means of increasing participation in the knowledge economy.

This chapter analyzes the link between the digital divide, infrastructure regulation, and disaster planning and relief through a case study of the flood in San Jose, California triggered by the Anderson dam’s overtopping in February 2017 and an examination of communication failures during the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California. This chapter theorizes that regulatory decisions construct social and disaster vulnerability. Rooted in the Whole Community approach to disaster planning and relief espoused by the United Nations and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, this chapter calls for leadership to end the digital divide. It highlights the imperative of understanding community information needs and argues for linking strategies to close the digital divide with infrastructure and emergency planning. As the Internet’s integration into society increases, the digital divide diminishes access to societal resources including disaster aid, and exacerbates wildfire, flood, pandemic, and other risks. To mitigate climate change, climate-induced disaster, protect access to social services and the economy, and safeguard democracy, it argues for digital inclusion strategies as a centerpiece of community-centered infrastructure regulation and disaster relief.

The challenges facing today's Mexican migrant population, almost a third of the US migrant population, are formidable. Such high representation offers not only challenges, but also increased political representation and large networks of social support. Complex relationships established through such networks provide Mexican migrants with avenues of access to communities, opportunities and services. Following a working definition of community and the concept of social capital, this paper examines health care availability for Mexican migrants in the United States. Because Mexican women are traditionally responsible for the health of their families, a case study is used to illustrate how knowledge and information gained through women's social networks gives Mexican women in the US critical decision‐making power with regard to health care. Greater acknowledgement of women as the brokers of health‐preserving information networks is key to recognising their significance as stakeholders in community health care. Future policy developers should recognise the importance of understanding such specific contextual issues, because they create a health care system that is responsive to individual and community needs.

This chapter embarks on a cross-Asian comparison to glean valuable insights from various regions and religious contexts. By examining family planning practices and challenges in different parts of Asia, valuable lessons are uncovered that can inform policies, programs, and initiatives aimed at achieving family planning-related sustainable development goals (SDGs). The complexities and nuances of family planning across diverse cultural, social, and religious landscapes are delved into, shedding light on both common threads and unique challenges faced by marginalized communities. Through this comparative analysis, the aim is to contribute to a holistic understanding of family planning in Asia and provide actionable recommendations to enhance access, equity, and outcomes in pursuit of family planning-related SDGs.

The phrase “digital divide” has been applied to the gap that exists in most countries between those with ready access to the tools of information and communication technologies, and the knowledge that they provide access to, and those without such access or skills. This may be because of socio‐economic factors, geographical factors, educational, attitudinal and generational factors, or it may be through physical disabilities. A further gap between the developed and underdeveloped world in the uptake of technology is evident within the global community, and may be of even greater significance. The paper examines a number of these issues at the national level in the USA, UK, Canada and New Zealand, looking for evidence of the “digital divide”, assessing factors that contribute to it, and evaluating strategies that can help reduce it. The relevance of these strategies to developing countries, and strategies for reducing the international digital divide are also explored.

This article examines the changing role of community network associations or “freenets” in providing Internet access by examining the case of the Calgary Community Network Association (CCNA) located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The changing role of the CCNA is examined against the backdrop of the withdrawal of states from the telecommunications field, the priorities of the Canadian government, and the role of the private sector. Community networks may ultimately focus on persons who do not have computers, while advertising supported services may attract those with computers who may not wish or cannot afford to pay a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP).

For much of its 43-year history, the community college sector in Jamaica has been plagued by perceptions of inferior status and mediocre tertiary education offerings. The Jamaican colleges have responded to the criticisms by aggressively pursuing quality assurance initiatives such as program accreditation, expanded course offerings, and ongoing curriculum review. This chapter traces the birth and development of the community college movement in Jamaica and the Caribbean and acknowledges the significant achievement of the Jamaican colleges in increasing access to tertiary education. The chapter also examines threats to the open access policy that may have serious implications for education equity and quality. These include inadequate funding, limited infrastructure to support the curriculum, low enrolment of specialized groups, and unsatisfactory completion and graduation rates. Recommendations for policy and practice are proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to prepare data that can be used as a base for establishing best practices for making archival linguistic materials available for (re-)use by members of language communities.

To assess how archival materials can be made more readily available to marginalized language communities, the authors use a questionnaire targeted at their members and, to a lesser extent, outsider researchers worldwide.

The collected data shows certain peculiar – and likely new – tendencies that are vital for finding practical approaches to data access. Importantly, the language communities in question have decent internet access, mainly via mobiles phones and smartphones. They are actively present in social networks and commonly use messengers.

This study has several biases. It pre-depends on internet access and is based upon a relatively small group of respondents fluent in English, Russian, Spanish or French. Besides these, not all questions were apparently understood as intended.

To enable better access of marginalized language communities to archived language materials, it seems meaningful to recommend developing mobile-friendly infrastructure, possibly integrated into popular platforms.

To the best the authors’ knowledge, the question of access to archived linguistic materials by language community members globally, as well as their connectivity and communication habits, was not the subject of previous research with the means of survey data.