Understanding Community: Politics, Policy and Practice

Abstract

This book by Peter Somerville is impressive and to be recommended to community workers, policy-makers, analysts and later-year social work students. It is impressive for three main reasons, first throughout the text Somerville is expounding on the notion of the ‘beloved community’ a concept that is developed to guide community workers and human services practitioners in various settings. The ideal of the ‘beloved community’, drawn from Martin Luther King, has as its central notion groups of individuals who cooperate freely and equally to achieve the flourishing of all community members. This ideal can clarify what a developed community might look like and thus inspire community workers and social workers with a sense of purpose to guide their actions. Somerville offers a thorough systemic critical reflection of various governmental policy and programme directions over the recent decades in Britain. He relates the most recent research findings to the effectiveness of these interventions against their own stated aims and against the ideal of the ‘beloved community’. Secondly, the way Somerville relates highly abstract theoretical concepts, particularly Bourdieu's habitus and capital, and Foucault's disciplinary and pastoral power, to the latest research findings allows the reader to follow his analysis and rationale for seeking changes in creating a ‘developed’ community. In making sense of community, he promotes a notion of ‘community’ that focuses on ‘meaningful interconnectedness’ between people (in embodied or imagined groups) within a specific ‘habitus’.

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