Question: Community Building

I'm mailing you from beirut, lebanon. I'm looking for books on community building and organizing (in squats, neighborhoods, workplace, unemployed, syndicates and unions,...), something really good, modern and most of all practical and having come out of practice.

Answer: Community Building

Here are some links to free online handbooks, journals, resource sites, manuals, and books on community building and organizing. Most of these resources are concerned with both community building practices and social justice work. Many of them are directed at neighborhood-based projects, but may have applications beyond neighborhood settings.

The Citizen's Handbook
The introduction to the handbook provides a rationale for the Handbook, and its author's approach. The Handbook includes a number of suggestions for specific community building activities and tactics. This site includes links to a number of full-text articles and reports, as well as websites focused on social justice and community organizing.

Local Community Self-Reliance Manual
From the Manual's author, Jamie Brownlee, a Research Assistant for the Program in Global Political Economy at the University of Manitoba:
"State and market systems have increasingly left local communities without adequate support to meet human needs and, in response, there have been a growing number of local community initiatives that are seeking to meet them. This manual directs your attention to some of the more promising community undertakings."

Extensive list of annotated links to resources in the following areas: intentional community networking associations, research and information centers, sustainable community development and design, and grassroots community organizing/economic democracy.

Building Inclusive Communities: Artists of Change at UfaFabrik
The Building Inclusive Communities website, supported by the International Federation of Settlements and Neighbourhood Centres, includes a potentially-relevant case study from Germany:

"The ufaFabrik is a one-of-a-kind European experiment in community. What began in the 70's as a "squat" of the old Berlin Universal Studios led to the transformation of the buildings and extensive grounds into a local artistic, social service and ecological centre. This unique redevelopment process has used the arts to engage, include and ultimately revitalise the entire community."

Squat!Net
The News page (look for the link on the left-hand side of the index page) includes reports from groups that are organizing & reporting back from protest actions. These articles aren't specifically focused on community building, but this may be a resource for connecting with other groups, or seeing what strategies people have been developing within squat communities.

Common Focus
From the website: Common Focus is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing resources for community building. [Its] mission is two-fold:

* To create communities where each citizen is seen as an appreciated asset to be celebrated and whose voice and energy is part of the solution.

* To build communities where residents join together in public dialogue and organize groups and organizations to solve problems.

Note: While not affiliated with a specific religious group, Common Focus does recognize faith as an aspect of community building initiatives. It's not clear (from the site) whether or not the organization identifies as faith-based.

The Aspen Institute: Roundtable on Community Change
From the site's authors: The Roundtable on Community Change was established in 1992 as a forum in which people engaged in the field of comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs)-including foundation sponsors, directors, technical assistance providers, evaluators, and public sector officials-could meet to discuss the lessons that are being learned by initiatives across the country and to work on common problems they are facing.

Comprehensive Community Initiatives (CCIs) are neighborhood-based efforts that seek improved outcomes for individuals and families as well as improvements in neighborhood conditions by working comprehensively across social, economic and physical sectors. Additionally, CCIs operate on the principle that community building -- that is, strengthening institutional capacity at the neighborhood level, enhancing social capital and personal networks, and developing leadership -- is a necessary aspect of the process of transforming distressed neighborhoods.

From this site, you can download a free report on structural racism and community building (titled "Structural Racism and Community Building").

Shelterforce Online
*This organization focuses on American issues, and may be limited in its scope, given your query

From the website:
Shelterforce is the nation's oldest continually-published housing and community development magazine. For three decades, Shelterforce has been a primary forum for organizers, activists and advocates in the affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization movements.

Shelterforce is published by the National Housing Institute, an independent nonprofit organization that examines the issues causing the crisis in housing and community in America. These issues include poverty and racism, disinvestment and lack of employment, safety, education and breakdown of the social fabric. NHI examines how these and other factors affect people as they try to build safe and viable neighborhoods. NHI has performed original research on such topics as saving subsidized housing, homelessness prevention, abandoned property revitalization and creating jobs as a component of affordable housing construction.

Books

I searched WorldCat (accessible as a subscription database through some public and academic libraries) using strategies like community organization as subject heading, community development as a subject heading, and "community building" as a keyword phrase. Here are just some of the titles that came up. Even if they're not available in your local library, you can inquire about interlibrary loan, which would allow you to borrow books in other libraries' collections through your own library.

Building Family, School, and Community Partnerships by Kay Wright, Dolores A. Stegelin, Lynn Hartle (3rd ed, 2007)

Communication and Community by Gregory J. Shepherd and Eric W. Rothenbuhler (2001)

Community Building: Renewal, Well-Being, and Shared Responsibility by Patricia L Ewalt, Edith M Freeman, and Dennis L. Poole (1998)

Community Building: Values for a Sustainable Future by Leonard Jason (1997)

Community Building: What Makes It Work: A Review of Factors Influencing Successful Community Building by Paul W. Mattessich, Barbara R. Monsey, and Corinna Roy (1997)

Community Building in Public Housing: Ties that Bind People and Their Communities by Arthur Naparstek, Dennis Dooley, and Robin Smith (1997)

Community Organizing and Community Building for Health by Meredith Minkler (1997)

Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy by Mark R Warren (2001)

Empowering Squatter Citizen: Local Government, Civil Society, and Urban Poverty Reduction by Diana Mitlin and David Satterthwaite (2004)

From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization by Benjamin Heim Shepard and Ronald Hayduk (2002)

Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times by Luis Rodriguez (2001)

A Place at the Table: Participating in Community Building by Kathleen de la Pena McCook (2000)

Poor Workers' Unions: Rebuilding Labor from Below by Vanessa Tait (2005)

Struggle of the Poor: Neighborhood Organization and Clientelist Practice in a Quito Squatter Settlement by Gerrit Burgwal (1995)

For some history --

An Interracial Movement of the Poor: Community Organizing and the New Left in the 1960s by Jennifer Frost (2001)

And here are a couple of examples of dissertations on related topics; you probably won't be able to get your hands on these, but this gives an idea of what research others have done --

"Community Unions in Baltimore and Long Island: Beyond the Politics of Particularism" by Janice Fine (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2003)

"A View of Community Participation and Upgrading in the Informal Settlements" by Francis Rahlapane (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1999)