Communities and Social Justice

‘Community’ is an enduring theme in public policy and social research. Communities of place, interest and identity are sites of contestation, care and control in an increasingly individualized, yet also inter-connected, world.

The Communities and Social Justice (CSJ) research group comprises academic staff and postgraduate researchers, whose work focuses on community-based action for socially just change.

Specialisms in the Department include:

• ‘communities in collaboration’ (community-university research partnerships; participatory action research; communities of practice; community development; contextual safeguarding);
• 'contested communities' (issues of identity, intersectionality, relationships, belonging, space and place, including in faith, disability, ethnic and prison communities; the problematics of renegotiating and reconstructing communities; and sustainable communities in late modern society):
• 'communities in crisis' (forced migration; trafficking; sex work; austerity; poverty/debt; eco-social sustainability).

Key questions explored by members of this group include:

• How is 'community' problematized and used in policy, practice and research? How do communities respond to crisis?
• What is the role of community-based approaches to promoting social justice locally and globally?
• How can diverse communities work together for socially just change?
• What new theoretical practical approaches to community development and organising are needed?

For further information and details of meetings, contact s.j.banks@durham.ac.uk   

CSJ Term 2 research theme meetings

Communities and Social Justice postcard

Centre for Social Justice and Community Action

For further information regarding the Lived Experience event, taking place in March 2023, please view the following page: Live Experience March 2023