Chanan, Gabriel
vendredi, janvier 12, 2007 at 03:01 (Unintroduced Version)
Gabriel Chanan is Co-Director of Research and Policy in the UK organisation, Community Development Foundation (CDF), and works part of his time in the Communities and Local Government department of the UK government.
We have invited Gabriel to contribute to e-urban from time to time on developments in UK policy and method which may be of interest elsewhere in Europe, and his own views on philosophical dilemmas connected with local development. [His views on theoretical dilemmas will be published in his own Blog, that is soon to appear on this site. His contributions on developments in UK policy appear in the Journal.- Editor's note 12 Jan. 2007]
Gabriel’s involvement in issues of local development began with direct activism in local neighbourhoods and expanded into research and evaluation, policy analysis and policy advice. His work in the UK has been closely associated with the role of CDF, which began as a government-commissioned programme of experimental local projects and now leads national programmes in this field.
He has also carried out analyses of local development in many other parts of Europe and is particularly interested in dialogue between the ‘community development’ model as practised in Britain, which is currently undergoing some major changes, and forms of local development elsewhere in Europe, often with very different philosophical roots.
Main landmarks in his work include Out of the Shadows: Local Community Action and the European Community (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 1992) and Community Involvement in Urban Regeneration: Added Value and Changing Values (European Commission [DGXVI] Regional Studies 27, 1997). As well as making some input to EU policy, these studies provided a basis for a more objective and comparative approach to the British tradition of community work. In the course of the 1990s Gabriel helped CDF to develop policy positions on the basis of its wide practical fieldwork experience in the UK and its analytical studies in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.
In 2002 the UK government commissioned him to carry out two studies which have contributed to current policy on local development: Measures of Community, for the Home Office, established what sorts of objective measures could be applied to the assessment of local community activity; and Searching for Solid Foundations, for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (subsequently renamed Communities and Local Government), diagnosed the tendency of urban policy to invoke community involvement in its rationale but neglect it in its delivery systems. Government policy in 2006-7 appears to be taking major strides to overcome this tendency - see the Website of the UK Government that is dedicated to the Community Development policy.
Gabriel’s professional publications since 1990 are as follows:
- The Community Development Challenge (Edited). London: Communities and Local Government * , 2006 (December)
- Who are the capacity builders? (Edited and introduced. Main report by Peter Taylor.) London: Community Development Foundation, 2006
- Whatever Happened to Social Europe? (Edited and introduced). London: ACED (Active Communities and European Development) 2006. Available from CDF and Community Service Volunteers.
- Measures of Community. London: Home Office / Community Development Foundation, 2004 (April)
- Searching for Solid Foundations. London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister * , 2003 (September).
- Community Involvement: The Roots of Renaissance? London: ODPM * , 2002
- The New Community Strategies: How to Involve Local People. London: Community Development Foundation, 2000.
- ‘Community responses to social exclusion’ in Janie Percy-Smith, ed., Policy Responses to Social Exclusion, Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000.
- ‘Trente ans d’histoire des politiques de développement urbain’ in Les Cahiers de DSU, 24. Lyon: Centre de Ressources et d’Échanges Pour le Développement Social et Urbain, Sept 2000.
- ‘Le recours aux associations et communautés, constant des politiques urbaines britanniques’ urbain’ in Les Cahiers de DSU, 24. Lyon: Centre de Ressources et d’Échanges Pour le Développement Social et Urbain, Sept 2000.
- ‘Objectifying community development’, in Voluntary Action, London: National Centre for Volunteering, June 2000.
- SRB6: Involving the Community . London: Community Development Foundation, 1999 (with Alison Gilchrist and Alison West)
- Regeneration and Sustainable Communities. London: Community Development Foundation, 1999 (with Alison West and others).
- Local Community Involvement, a Guide to Good Practice. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 1999.
- 'Employment policy and the social economy: promise and misconceptions'. Local Economy, Feb 1999 [Winner of first Sam Aaronovitch memorial prize, 2000].
- The New Structural Funds - What Development Model for Europe? Community Development Foundation, 1998
- Active Citizenship and Community Involvement - Getting to the Roots. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 1997
- Community Involvement in Urban Regeneration: Added Value and Changing Values . European Commission (DGXVI) Regional Studies 27. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities,1997.
- Regeneration and the Community: Guidelines to Community Involvement in the Single Regeneration Budget. London: Community Development Foundation, 1997
- 'Regeneration: plugging gaps or pushing frontiers?' Local Economy, June 1996.
- For Love or Money: Local Communities and World Social Policy. An assessment of the UN World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, March 1995 . London: Community Development Foundation and Reading International Support Centre, 1995 (With Bente Madeira)
- 'Local community groups - essential stepping stones'. The European Citizen, No. 28, Brussels: Euro-Citizens Action Service, 1994
- Discovering Community Action. Implications for Local Practice from 'Out of the Shadows'. London: Community Development Foundation, 1994
- 'Local community sectors: the hidden dynamic', in Researching the Voluntary Sector, eds S.Saxon-Harrold and J. Kendal. Tonbridge: Charities Aid Foundation, 1993
- Local Community Action and Social Policy . Dublin: European Foundation, 1993 (nine languages)
- Out of the Shadows: Local Community Action and the European Community. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 1992 (Published in English, German, Spanish and French)
- ‘Coping with change at neighbourhood level', Streetwise (Sustainable City Forum Report), Summer 1992
- Taken for Granted: Community Activity and the Crisis of the Voluntary Sector . London: Community Development Foundation, 1991
- Social Change and Local Action . (With Koos Vos). Dublin: European Foundation, 1990
Note: * The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) was renamed Communities and Local Government (CLG) in 2006
