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Community Development Journal Advance Access published online on July 12, 2005
Community Development Journal, doi:10.1093/cdj/bsi067
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© Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal. 2005 All rights reserved

Article

Community development research: Merging (or submerging) communities of practice? A response to Van Vlaenderen

Vaughn John 1*

1 Centre for Adult Education, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Private Bag X01, Scottsville 3209, South Africa

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Vaughn John, E-mail: johnv{at}ukzn.ac.za


  Abstract

A response to Van Vlaenderen (2004) is needed both as a corrective measure and as a stimulus for debate. This article argues that Van Vlaenderen incorrectly draws on the theory of ‘communities of practice’ (Lave and Wenger, 1999; Wenger, 1998) and discusses the conceptual and political implications of such incorrect usage. The article contends that the merger of communities of practice that Van Vlaenderen describes using two case examples is unlikely to have occurred and that presenting such transactions as mergers can be unhelpful to the community development field in that they mask important status and power asymmetries that exist within and between communities. This latter argument is supported by a discussion of the concepts of participation, participatory process, power, and empowerment. Van Vlaenderen appears to have written about joint activity between communities rather than the merger of communities of practice.


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