Jenny Fisher

Personalisation and the co-operative tradition

There is growing interest in how enterprises based on co-operative values can help to meet needs relating to welfare and re-energise public services. The objective of this article is to examine critically the intersection of personalised adult social care services and the co-operative tradition, which emphasises mutual aid and value-led enterprise. We do this by retelling the story of personalisation through a co-operative lens, and ground this reading in case studies of two new co-operative enterprises that were supported under a Department of Health programme in England (2006–2009) intended to demonstrate how personalised adult social care could be extended by developing collaborative, co-operative organisational forms.

Sustainable Communities: University-Community Partnership Research on Social Dimensions of Sustainable Development

The aim of this paper is to examine the role that university research can play in sustainable development at the level of community. The methodological approach is action research undertaken in collaboration with voluntary and community organisations, addressing their needs and including high levels of participation. An outline of the nature of sustainable communities and engaged university research, is followed by case examples of five collaborative research projects, each generating different types of qualitative data, which inform sustainable development of communities in diverse ways. The studies indicate that university-community partnerships can provide understanding of the challenges facing people in communities; encourage innovative local action for sustainability; and contribute to policy development at different levels. They do this via the creation of ecological ‘edges’. The challenges facing universities doing this kind of research are highlighted.

Tweeting back while shouting back: Social media and feminist activism:

Social networks are increasingly significant to the success of feminist activism, campaigning and consciousness raising. Digital spaces including Twitter, YouTube, blogs and Facebook provide a platform for feminists and others to share and address experiences and raise awareness of misogyny, sexism and violence against women. This paper provides a commentary on use of social media for feminists, and explores the role of social media engagement with the wider social movement of feminism, through a consideration of the process of ‘shouting back’ with a focus on Twitter and hashtags. We will consider why social media can be useful to feminists with reference to existing research, before discussing the impact of two social media based feminist campaigns (#everydaysexism and #AskThicke) and the implications of these for the feminist movement.

Delivering on the Big Society? Tensions in hosting community organisers

The Big Society, including the community organising programme, was central to the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron’s vision for a redefined relationship between state and society. Promising the devolvement of power to neighbourhoods and citizens – Community organising was funded by the Cabinet Office in 2011. It was conceived of as a means of developing active engagement of communities and individuals to resolve the issues within deprived neighbourhoods. Manchester Metropolitan University hosted one of the first cohorts of community organisers working with a national organisation, Locality. This article provides a case study of a university-community partnership centred on community organising. Drawing on narratives, we consider the tensions inherent in university hosting of community organisers and the framing of the project as community organising as distinct from other forms of community practice.