Che, C.F. Re-Inventing Community Development: Utilizing Relational Networking and Cultural Assets for Infrastructure Provision. Societies2018, 8, 84.
Che, C.F. Re-Inventing Community Development: Utilizing Relational Networking and Cultural Assets for Infrastructure Provision. Societies 2018, 8, 84.
Che, C.F. Re-Inventing Community Development: Utilizing Relational Networking and Cultural Assets for Infrastructure Provision. Societies2018, 8, 84.
Che, C.F. Re-Inventing Community Development: Utilizing Relational Networking and Cultural Assets for Infrastructure Provision. Societies 2018, 8, 84.
Abstract
Utilizing relational networking and cultural assets provide an arena for village development associations (VDAs) to fill the gaps in infrastructure in resource limited communities of Cameroon’s north-western region. Through case study, this study interrogates the foundational thesis of relational networking and cultural assets deployed to deal with social development challenges. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with community participants. Purposive sampling was used, and data were analysed and critically synthesized with comparable literature. Communities increasingly shoulder their own development through a multiplicity of agency with internal and external stakeholders. The analysis captures a typology of incremental cultural assets, galvanised and re-engineered, promoting a rejuvenated community. A multi-layered approach centred on intersecting elements with unvarying input from community members are perceptible. Though the translational benefits are not clear-cut, relational networking and incremental cultural assets hold out the prospect for community transformation in infrastructure provision - supply of fresh water, equipping schools, community halls, building roads, bridges and community halls. In the process, social inequality and other barriers of disadvantage are narrowed.
Keywords
Cameroon, agency; community; cultural assets; empowerment; relational networking; infrastructure; traditional authority
Subject
Social Sciences, Sociology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
