James Cook University: Community Development Case Study Analysis

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of two community development case studies. The first case study focuses on the indigenous perspective in Australia, examining the impact of colonization, the importance of positivism, and the need for community support. The second case study explores place branding in Logstor, Denmark, highlighting how branding can be utilized as a strategy for community development. The report discusses key concepts such as empowerment, inclusion, and the application of community development theories. It explores the strengths of working together, the significance of cultural dimensions, and the role of social workers in educating community members. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of community development activities in improving societal conditions and fostering equality.

Running Head: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note:

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Introduction
The term community development is used to describe a process to support the
members of a particular community by the agencies. It is a holistic approach that was formed
with the principle of empowerment, inclusion, self-determination, human rights, and social
justice related activities. The approach consider the members of the community as the experts
or owners of their own lives and the community as well. Abu, (2014) mentioned about
various potential outcomes of community development approach. This is an approach that
directly involves the community members and the children. It is intended to provide various
benefits to the selected group of people including quality education and knowledge about
self-efficacy and empowerment. Lyne, (2017) mentioned that it was intended to address the
social or communal issues based on the neighbourhood level. The study also mentioned that
these activities also intended to address the issues related to the aboriginal culture in
Australia. Along with this, it also mentioned that they are basically originated to address the
disadvantages of Australia. Hence, the paper will study two related case studies related to
community development to understand the principle of this approach. The paper will progress
further will differently approaches and theories related to community development to
acquaint deep knowledge from the discussion.
Discussion
The first case study selected to understand the concept of community development
depicts about the strength of working together. This paper develops the concept about the
indigenous perspective on community development. Blichfeldt & Halkier, (2014) mentioned
about the evaluative notion of early learnings from the perspective of community
development organized and sponsored by the foundation of Tesla. According to the study,
during the year of 2004 the Tesla foundation brought the volume namely Early Learnings as

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a form of research report to support the study of Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Blichfeldt & Halkier, (2014) mentioned that the record of Australian Bureau of Statistics
presents that the Australian community consists of 483,994 aboriginal people. The
indigenous people consider the young generation as the basic step of educational
development. Vuignier, (2016) mentioned that the children of indigenous community are
over-represented in the procedure of out-of-home care. This study also mentioned that the
childhood community of indigenous people suffer from preventable illness, communicable
diseases, malnutrition, substance and mental issues. They have poor connection with the
medical and mental treatment procedures and other services allocated for indigenous
community in Australia.
Vuignier, (2016) mentioned about the present condition of Australian aboriginal
people. It is a result of complete isolation of generation to generation. The Australian
community is being isolated from the economy of mainstream, face extreme communal
disadvantage, powerlessness and poverty. There is very little improvement in some issues and
no improvement in maximum number of issues. According to the health record, the poor
indigenous people are affected to the preventable diseases more often specially the children
suffer from chronic diseases.
Blichfeldt & Halkier, (2014) mentioned about the impact of colonization as a reason
of all the suffering of indigenous people. The study focuses on defining the term colonization
for understanding the problems of the Indigenous people. According to the history,
indigenous people are the clans of people affiliated with tribal communication. Initially the
indigenous people comprised of elders, fathers, sisters, mothers, and brothers. They possess
strong belief on cultures and mythological beliefs. Colonization introduced the community
with the terms called separation from the roots. Vuignier, (2016) mentioned that removing

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from the roots lead to cultural damage, unties among the family, and disturbed parenthood
and role playing of the cultural health.
Smith & Hunt, (2018) mentioned the theory of Positivism to demonstrate about the
indigenous perspective of community development. To define the theory, it can be said that,
it is the paradigm that measures the behavior of the human being. It redefines the human
behavior from the contextualized perspective. The theory stresses on the positive emotional
feeling of the human being. It indicates at the dichotomous thinking of the bourgeois
philosophy. The philosophy provides an eye on the empirical science and investigate about
the true source of knowledge (Ramos & Prideaux, 2014). Hence, in understanding the
indigenous perspective of community development it is necessary to understand the attitude
for problem solving. They understand the view of how the community members and the
children feel about the issue and how they want to bring change in the entire community or
among the children of indigenous community.
Indigenous people adopt the effort of positivism and carried the emotion to the next
generation, which is a scientific objective. This is an intuitive concern for community related
activities with the scientific attitude of bringing change into the community. On the other
hand Altman, (2018) mentioned that the indigenous community also possess positive attitude
towards health and mental health of the indigenous people. The researchers state that the
consequences of extreme violence on the indigenous community is reflected on the next
generation and they also go through traumatic experiences in their lives. Researchers state
that the enormous amount of upheavals is the reason behind the struggles of the indigenous
people at present. The young generation of indigenous people possess negative trust, faith
and belief on the other communities of the world (Cajete, 2016). Hence, it is the main barrier
standing against the progress and activities of community development.

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Prout, (2018) mentioned that community needs to understand their responsibility to
ensure the young generation about the positive future. They need to follow the positivism
theory of community development and ensure the children about their welfare and bright
future. The Early Learnings by Tesla speaks about the positive theory to help the children to
develop trust upon the current system of the society. The study explains that the trauma after
the postcolonial era eliminated that cultural kinship within the indigenous community of
Australia (Taylor, 2018). Hence, the Indigenous community is now consisting of different
tribal group and share their knowledge among them. This study helps to build a strong
perception about togetherness and consider it as a strategy of community development.
Community development and the related activities helps to raise the position of the
inferior group of the society. The community is a place with cultural diversity or indifference.
The people exhibit different beliefs, different notions, and different cultural background
(Kavaratzis & Kalandides, 2015). The activities related to community development helps to
uplift the inferior group of people of the community. The concepts help the people to
motivate the selves to enjoy every essence of life. Govers & Go, (2016) mentioned that,
community development provides the objective to develop programs of changing the pattern
of lifestyle. The main purpose of the community development program here is centred around
uplifting the position of Indigenous group of Australia. This study focuses on only the
cultural dimension of the concept of community development. To simplify the notion, it can
be said that, the term includes the aspects of culture, religion, ethnicity, and other features.
The cultural dimension of community development generalises the process of community
development with culture that helps to uplift the position of aboriginal people within the
entire nation.
In the second case, Burchill et al., (2006) mentioned about the community
development with the technique of place branding. The case depicts about the place branding

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of a small town called Logstor situated at North Jutland, Denmark. The community used the
festival of mussel to brand their place and initiate their step for community development
through recognition. Burchill et al., (2006) mentioned that the basic law of supply and
demands is applicable to the neighbourhood equally as the product or any service. The
leaders of legal city and neighbourhood recognise that when the supply about homes about
the occupancy by the owner extends the demand. It is also known that whether their
neighbourhood is considered as a place where the community possess the opportunity to
select the live. Hankinson, (2015) also mentioned that development of the quality of life with
the opportunity of home purchase through the program like Neighbourhood Stabilization is
also a process of improving the image of the neighbourhood to reach the prospective
consumers as the quality and expense of a particular home. Andersson, (2014) mentioned the
concept of place branding is a dynamic process. This is a strategic process to leverage the
strength of the community, to increase the strong profile of the community in front of the
entire world. In this regard, the study mentioned and defined the term community branding as
a means of community development.
The term branding is used to demonstrate the process of promoting the product or
services to attract the potential consumers. Similarly, community branding is a strategy to
promote the community and raise its importance in front of the entire world. Most of the
branding and promoting facilities helps to understand the corporate world and their demand
from a community. Oliveira, (2015) mentioned that community branding is becoming very
popular among the public sector. The study also mentioned about the common misconception
connected with the term brand and its promotion. According to the study, the term brand goes
beyond the range of values and regulations about a particular company. Similar to the
commercial branding, the term community branding provides certain amount of promises to
the community members. Branding the community means viewing the community with a

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constant image a person needs to perceive about a particular region. Campaign related to
community branding provides a voice to the city and the town to illustrate the dreams and
certain ambition about the place.
The concept of community branding here utilized as an act of community
development. Branding is a process that promote a product, service, or person. Here, it is
utilized to promote the community and create awareness about its existence in front of the
entire nation. From the sociological lens, it is the highly valuable technique for promoting the
community. It refers to building strong networks across the country to create awareness. It
also helps to understand the importance communities to serve for the people within it and
also outside the community. This activity of community development provides meaning and
worth to the community as well as it influence similar communities to upgrade their position
within the world. In this case, the only activity that is branding is mentioned as an activity of
community development. It needs the social workers to educate the community members
with the process of community branding to cope-up with the competitive world.
Both the case studies define the concept of community development with different
perspective. The first analyzed the concept of community development with the notion of
place branding (Burchill et al., 2006). It is the unique way of community development that
enhance the progress of the community from different ways. On the other hand, the second
case study states the indigenous perspective of community development (Altman, 2018).
Both the case studies introduce two theory related to community development for better
understanding. Community development theories helps the readers to understand the case
studies with in depth evaluation with the community related studies (Taylor, 2018).
Conclusion

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In conclusion, it can be said that, the community development activities are aimed at
upgrading the condition of the society. All the activities are initiated to make the people
aware about the generation and provide the community with the affecting factors of the social
life. The community development aims at brining all round development to the community.
Both the two case studies make the members of the community understand about the
strategies to motivate the people and provide equality to all the members of the community.
On the other hand, the two community development theories help to understand the
sociological perspective of human behaviour. In Australia, the social course helps the student
to understand the poor condition of indigenous people as mentioned in the second case study.
The study mentioned that, the domain of social work is polarised and divided among
individual and community works. Hence, the entire study analysed the community
development and its relevance to the present condition of Australian society.

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References
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