The aim of this book was to examine the contentious micropolitics of American and British community development since 1968. By analysing community development discourses in two countries and across three politically salient historical moments, I have attempted to demonstrate how the ideas, discourses, practices and identities that reproduce inequality and disrespect have become dominant within community development and have, at times, systematically marginalised competing approaches that seek to construct egalitarian and democratic identities and social practices in this field. Using a post-structuralist discourse analysis methodology helped me approach fairly well known data – the community development texts – in a new way. Focusing on identity constructions is a powerful way of considering the claims and assumptions of community development and as a consequence, I was able to problematise the basic assumptions that give impetus to the theory and practice of community development in both countries.

The analysis that I offer in this book has repeatedly problematised the grand narrative of community development. Rather than community development in either country being a transformative process of progressive social change, frequently it is a process of policy makers and professionals subjecting local people to patronising, disrespectful and undemocratic ideas, language and practices. In particular, community development appears to be predicated on a range of problematic identity constructions. More often than not, the professional, the radical or the policy maker in the dominant community development discourses in America and Britain are always invested with agency while local people are constructed as a passive, bewildered and incorrigible object to be acted on by the professional. The reason why these identity constructions dominate community development theory and practice seems to hinge on the particular way in which agency is operationalised by the majority of community development discourses.

Agency is objectified by most of the discourses. What I mean is that agency is understood as a possession that can be given or taken away from individuals and groups. Using the idea of agency in this way means that different types of people can be easily categorised as possessing or lacking the ability to control their lives. As a result, community development is defined as the process of professionals mediating, regulating and controlling other people's development of agency.