What is it about?
This article explores the patterns and dynamics of community engagement in water issues in relation to the programs and campaigns of two, small-scale, locally rooted, volunteer-based water advocacy organizations in two different Canadian communities. While the two communities and the two organizations have different priorities when it comes to water protection, one feature common in both contexts is the local presence of Nestle Waters pumping and bottling facilities. Our research, summarized in this article, looks back over the trends and dynamics of community engagement with the water organizations and their campaigns as a means of understanding how social action is mobilized and sustained.
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Why is it important?
This exploratory study suggests that while a crisis or the presence of some kind of a villain can trigger short-term community engagement, social factors such as collective identity, a sense of community, and sense of efficacy might be more important for sustaining and deepening engagement. Drawing on the results, we show how the pyramid of engagement, by depicting activist engagement as a multilevel, developmental process, can serve as a useful tool for community engagement scholars and practitioners alike.
Perspectives
In this article we have tried to be rich on description and less concerned with the broader (and more abstract) social theory underlying social action in response to the commodification of the water commons. As a result, I think we have produced an article that will be as interesting to those involved in the day-to-day effort to mobilize community activism as to those wishing to build theory from the observation of practice. It's often written, in books on community organizing, that organizers and activists are also theory builders. In Canada, a number of environmental and social justice networks have been experimenting with strategies derived from an organizing theory they call "engagement organizing." In this article we highlight some key features of this organizing theory, and use it as a framework through which to interpret our findings. Many thanks to the Sustainability Network and to Lindsay Telfer of the Canadian Freshwater Alliance in particular for their work in popularizing this organizing approach. We offer this article for its findings on community engagement on water issues, but also as an invitation for critical engagement with the ideas of "engagement organizing".
Dr. Robert A. Case
Renison University College
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Exploring the Ebbs and Flows of Community Engagement: The Pyramid of Engagement and Water Activism in Two Canadian Communities, Journal of Community Practice, April 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/10705422.2018.1449044.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Exploring the Ebbs and Flows of Community Engagement: The Pyramid of Engagement and Water Activism in Two Canadian Communities
Full text; open access
Interactive Timeline: Groundwater Protection in Wellington County: The Battle Over Water Bottling, 2000-2008
A summary timeline with links to archival documents of contestation surrounding groundwater-taking for bottling in Wellington County, Ontario, Canada, from 2000, when Nestle Waters bought properties and began water bottling operations there, through 2018.
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