International journal of community well-being最新文献

The COVID lockdowns were characterised by new forms of governmentality as lives were disrupted and controlled through the vertical transmission of biopolitics by the state. The paper considers how this was experienced by academics in 11 different countries through analysis of diaries written during the first lockdown. The paper asks if communities can offer an alternative to governmentality by looking at three levels: the national, the neighbourhood and the personal. Whilst at a national level the idea of community was instrumentalised to encourage compliance to extraordinary measures, at the local level community compassion through helping neighbours encouraged horizontal connections that could offer a "space" within the dominant logic of governmentality. At the level of personal communities, the digitalisation of social relationships helped to create supportive networks over widely dispersed areas but these were narrowly rather than widely focused, avoiding critical discussion.

Informal Cross Border Trade (ICBT) is mostly conducted by poor, vulnerable, small and unregistered traders who end up practising illegal activities in order to earn a livelihood and for the business to thrive. They often do not have official export/import license or permit within a defined threshold and this creates many impediments at international borders which oblige them to engage in illegal and corrupt behaviours. There is little comprehensive research about the illegalities of informal cross border traders and whether these illegalities improve the operation of ICBT or it ruins the business. This research examines the illegalities practised by informal cross border traders (ICBTs) in Zimbabwe to understand their nature, geographical spread, benefits and risks. A qualitative approach was used whereby in-depth interviews were undertaken with 30 informal cross border traders using snowball sampling. Traders who imported from Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa and Zambia were selected to participate in the study in order to document various illegalities performed at diverse national borders. Results revealed that traders engage in many illegal activities both at the national borders and in transit when confronted by Zimbabwe Revenue Authority officials and other security state organs. It was revealed that many traders use illegal ports of entry when importing their goods and that they rarely declare their goods at official border posts. The research recommends the government to proffer conditions that are manageable for the small scale traders to be registered so that illegal activities and corruption in the country can be lessened and also for the government to obtain meaningful tax from this sector.

The present study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the ways in which non-profit community literacy organizations can benefit individuals and communities in ways that transcend their stated missions. We employed a qualitative research design whereby data were collected via in-depth individual interviews and focus groups with program users (n = 72), staff (n = 11), and program leads (n = 8). Findings revealed that, in addition to supporting traditionally defined notions of literacy, programs presented participants with opportunities to cultivate bridging and bonding social capital. By way of the conditions created and programmatic measures employed within programs, bridging social capital often strengthened into deeper bonding ties between and amongst service users and, in many cases, staff and volunteers. Administrators and staff described efforts to create program cultures conducive to the development of social capital. The research illuminates how non-profit community entities can empower individual service users and their communities beyond their stated missions by fostering social and organizational connectedness, promoting communal cohesion and social trust, and cultivating typically unacknowledged talents, strengths and assets within marginalized communities.