With the death of our colleague and friend Jean-Pierre Augustin in July 2022, less than two years after that of his comrade Jean-Claude Gillet, the world of sociocultural community development is losing another beacon that has guided it for a quarter of a century. Professor emeritus at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne, member of the UMR PASSAGES and former director of research at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme d’Aquitaine, Jean-Pierre Augustin was a renowned geographer of urban cultures and leisure, of sociocultural community development as well as popular education, youth and sport movements and organizations in France, Canada, and Africa. Co-founder of the SCDP Journal and regular contributor, his legacy is immense and we offer in this issue a series of texts inspired by his works.
The recent history of sociocultural community development in African countries covers two distinct periods: 1) the post-World War II (1945-1960), during which the Welfare state, which had set itself up in the metropolises, had reached the colonies and encouraged the establishment of this function, sometimes as professionals, and of the first networks of equipment to accommodate activities; 2) the post-independence period ('1960), when political will and supply are lacking, while facing so many other challenges. Yet signs of the reactivation of sociocultural community development and its networks are observed since the beginning of the 21st century while various problems confront many African countries, of a health nature certainly, but also of access to public space, requires better structured sociocultural intervention.
Every territory develops arts, knowledges and sociability according to its geography, its architecture, his economy and its traditions. Cultural activities must be able to fit the territorial variations of cultural practices and lifestyles. The implanting of sociocultural community developpers, based on a better knowledge and an field experience, favorishes the implementation of programs of activities able to satisfy the aspiration of the individuals while revaluing the local or regional cultural identity. The analysis of the relationship between culture, territories and action also concerns the originality of cultural activities facing various territorial situations regarding both strategies of intervention and occupational integration. The present edition tries to answer the following questions: how do the specificities of territories influence strategies of cultural action? How the current experiments of cultural activities in diverse territories can contribute to the renewal of the practices?
Community action refers to any initiatives that come from a community (local, identity-based, or interest-based) or from public institutions, through professionals, with the goal of providing a collective solution to a social problem or common need. Its history is multifaceted and, in some countries, barely documented. It can use strategies that are consensus-based, that raise awareness, or that even involve conflict, as long as it is based on the principle that citizens have the mostaware knowledge of their experiences, that they have resources, and that the process created by the action increases their power to act.
Sport and associated sporting activities have proven to have a civilizing purpose with regard to developing the social organizations that support them, performance, as well as the values that they convey. This issue of the journal also examines the cultural dimension of sport. It presents various perspectives on sports cultures that could support those involved in socio-cultural intervention by furthering their knowledge and improving current practices.
Having claimed to contribute to the transformation of the social and political orders from the 1960s to 1980s, sociocultural community development longs since then to transform mentalities and to give access to the institutional resources to the marginalized populations as condition of participation in the democratic life. In this context, the social transformation of which it is question extends from the appropriation of the artistic tools to the inclusion of the «excluded» groups, throught conflict prevention, processes of reconciliation and reconstruction of collective memory.
This edition without specific theme approaches what is at stakes in sociocultural community development alternately around the questions of cultural diversity, social intervention, integration of the art in citizens participation, game that allow populations to take into account the interweaving of the socio-territorial dynamics and the consideration of the climatic variations on the humor of children and teenagers, besides depicting two current state of sociocultural community development on islands of the Caribbean and Indian Ocean. Closing this edition, two works are object of report.
What are the cultural peculiarities of every generation from the point of view of sociocultural community development ? How to intervene adequately with each of them ? What interventions lead to encourage the interaction or promote the dialogue between generations ? Texts gathered here started from these questions to bring answers adapted to contexts.
General term recovering the various ways by which citizens can contribute to political decisions, participation has transparency for first virtue. Applicable to different domains, often connected to urban planning or to the management of the environment, it has to ally the quality of the processes and the relevance of the purposes. Articles gathered here offer you a series of illustrations both from the point of view of the analyses and experiences.
Commitment in sociocultural community development recover activist, professional and democratic issues. Yet, if sociocultural community developers continue to claim to contribute to the simultaneous development of individuals, organizations and society by increasing cognitive capital, strengthening their power to act and their expressiveness and enhancing the potential to change established order, the recent economic and technological transformations sometimes take them away from these ends and question several benefits with regard to the conditions and structures of their commitment.
With the process of globalization, there is a growing concern about the loss of territorial identity markers in favour of a perceived homogenization. In this context, calls for the affirmation of local specificities are of increasing importance. Often, the discourse that supports these calls involves a set of oppositions, from local to global, with which existing cultural institutions and policies try to cope. Beyond oppositions like rurality/urbanity, locality/transnationality or actuality/virtuality, sociocultural community development is seen, on the one hand, as one strategy against inequalities. On the other hand, geographical, economic, political and social territories have specificities that impact not only on the practices of sociocultural community development, but also define its probable field of action. How territorial conditions inform or render sociocultural community development possible? How sociocultural community development fit into the social and political fabric of a territory? What are the functions that are assigned to local agents? Starting from the proposition that the characteristics of a territory induce not only distinct sociocultural community development practices, but also different ways of interrogating them, this issue is an invitation to reflect on the possible articulations of sociocultural community development and territory. The papers presented were first delivered at the 6th International Symposium on sociocultural community development held in autumn 2013 in Paris under the auspices of the Réseau international de l’animation. They all take as their starting point the issue of territory for sociocultural community development, or the ways in which territory offers a renewed point of view on the practices of sociocultural community developers.
The surges of the financial crisis of 2008 and the rejection of authoritarian governments mobilized youth worldwide during the last years. The increase of disparities and impoverishment of wide segments of population, the compulsory austerity and the absence of redistributive policies are denounced everywhere. In this context of indignation and national revolts, sociocultural community development with youth, even by youth, enters a phase of introspection and action.
We find according to socioeconomic contexts and forms of cultural intervention developed in different countries various training methods which have each their reference table of skills and their sociocultural relevance. This edition of the Journal draws up a current inventory of formations in sociocultural community development in Europe, in North America and in Africa according to places and levels of formation and approaches certain problems such as the contents of the trainings prosess and the vocabulary used, which can vary from a geographical area to another, as well as the development of vocational trainings based on action by opposition to the notion of reflexive practitioner.
The use of arts in sociocultural community development practices not only stimulate creativity and cultural practices, but also contributes to territorial development. Multiple ways are adopted according to contexts, profile of concerned practitioners and populations as show the five articles of this edition.
The editorial board of the international Journal Sociocultural community development and practices (SCDP) is proud to present you the second issue of this new journal so expected which testifies of the vigour of the research and of the experiments in sociocultural community development all around the globe. The Journal will also contribute to strengthen the network of actors engaged in this field of studies and practices throught international exchanges.
The editorial board of the international Journal Sociocultural community development and practices (SCDP) is proud to present you the first issue of this new journal so expected which testifies of the vigour of the research and of the experiments in sociocultural community development all around the globe. The Journal will also contribute to strengthen the network of actors engaged in this field of studies and practices throught international exchanges.
