Culture, community development and representaion

Abstract

Culture, as Worsley has argued, tells us not only who we are, and what is what, but what is to be done. In this broad sense, culture as ‘a design for living’ has been central to community development. This article summarizes competing approaches to the role of culture in community development in general, before focusing, more specifically upon the varying uses of community media. Community media can be used to disseminate ‘development’ messages from the top-down. And conversely, community media can be used as tools for participatory action research. The article concludes with a case study of the use of video as a tool for community participation and empowerment in Burkina Faso.