The politics of social impact: 'value for money' versus 'active citizenship'?

There is growing interest in identifying the social impact of everything: academic research, funded projects, organisations themselves, whether in public , private, or community sectors. The central questions are first what benefits do organizations create and deliver for society and second how do we measure these benefits? These questions are notoriously difficult to answer and yet go to the heart of efforts by governments and civil society organisations to create a better world, to generate social value. The importance of finding a way to measure social impact becomes all the more crucial when it comes to arguing that the benefits obtained far outweigh the cost of producing those benefits, and indeed the benefits may directly or  indirectly increase economic wealth. This line of thinking has started to generated various attempts in Australia and elsewhere in the neo-liberal world, to find objective indicators of social impact, and preferably to frame these in terms of monetary cost and benefit.  Indeed there is increasing insistence on the part of funding bodies that we measure the social impact. However, exactly what it is that we should be measuring remains contested and elusiv

Using collective memory work in development education

This article captures aspects of community responses to COVID-19 through a participatory and interdisciplinary approach, namely collective memory-work (CMW). Using an autoethnographic CMW, we share experiences on the theme of solidarity in the backdrop of a global health pandemic and ‘black lives matter’ across continents. As a methodology CMW has been adapted and adjusted by scholars informed by the purpose of its application, institutional frameworks, and organisational necessities. In the summer of 2020, a CMW symposium was scheduled in an Irish university but postponed due to COVID-19 restrictions. The scholars, however, decided to go online and work on the symposium. This article provides insights into the impact of the two events on the lives of four women scholars aged between 51 and 79 years who formed one of the discussant groups. The unfolding of the two global pandemics, namely racism and COVID-19, leads to reflections upon the conflicts experienced around solidarity, especially between participating in demonstrations in solidarity with #blacklivesmatter, and distancing ourselves in solidarity with all risk groups for COVID-19. One group’s right to breathe stood in opposition to another group’s right to breathe. The process of writing this piece on CMW also taught us to collectively own our final thoughts and words in this article

Career paths in the third sector : implications for human resource management

My interest in career paths in the third sector came from three early observations. First, the majority of workers appear to be women, in fact 77% of community sector community services in NSW (O'Donnell, 1985). Second, when asked about their career, most workers express the opinion that they have none. Third, when I examined the individual career paths of community sector workers I was struck by the stop and start nature of their paid work. Even, or perhaps especially, well qualified workers would move out of a position after about two years often to a more difficult position in a new area, with little or no salary increase and little prospect of future promotion. Indeed, there appears to be little career path available. These observations raise a number of important questions, some of which will be explored in this paper. What is the structure of the third sector labour market? What is the staff structure of third sector organisations? Is it true that career paths are unavailable, either within organisations or within the sector? If none exists, why do workers stay in the field? What motivates them? If there is a high turnover of staff, is this the reason? What are the implications of all this? If some sort of career path does exist, why do workers deny having a career? What do we mean by `career' anyway

University-Community Engagement: What does it mean?

This article reflects on the nature of Community-University engagement from a research focus. This entails several steps. In this I start with ‘engagement’ and what that might mean in the context of a University-based research centre. I then reflect on the nature of ‘community’ and the significance of the third sector globally and in Australia. The Centre for Australian Community Organisations and Management (CACOM) was the first research centre in Australia, and one of the first in the world designed explicitly to study the Community Sector and its impact. The article outlines one significant research program that emerged from the work of CACOM, namely the story of social capital research. This research was initiated by a request from community partners, and was carried out in collaboration with them. The research program led to several significant research projects which have had a major impact on theory and public policy. It challenges the nature of the University as ‘expert’ and illustrates the co-production of knowledge. The article concludes by discussing the various roles that the University can play within the co-production of research knowledge with the community, as collaborator in the research process itself, as mediator in the development of linking social capital between community and more powerful players, and as the potential site for independent and critical analysis

The grey nomad phenomenon : changing the script of aging

This article explores a relatively new and little understood phenomenon, that of the Australian Grey Nomads. Every year increasing numbers of older Australians take to the road. This article explores the phenomenon both empirically and theoretically. A grounded approach is used by which the experience is explored from an ethnographic account involving interviews with some 400 travelers, including in-depth taped interviews with 26 traveling groups. The data is analyzed and discussed in terms of "Ulyssean" aging. The Ulyssean lifestyle requires the freedom to pursue personal choice and new, personally risky experience. Issues of health, personal development, and social networks are discussed in relation to the literature on aging. In particular, it is argued that the Grey Nomad phenomenon fundamentally challenges the dominant decline model of aging. It presents a picture instead of these older Australians taking active and very positive control of their lives, regardless of financial and health conditions. In doing so, they are rewriting the dominant social script for aging

Australian grey nomads and American snowbirds : similarities and differences

The Grey Nomad phenomenon is a growing one in Australia. Grey Nomads are defined within this paper as people aged over 50 years, who adopt an extended period of travel (at least 3 months) independently within their own country. They travel by caravan, motor-home, campervan or converted bus for at least three months, but often up to several years, moving around Australia. They are not part of any commercial tourist event. While it is difficult to establish accurate numbers, the Bureau of Tourism Research estimates that in a single year Australian retirees undertake approximately 200,000 caravan trips of more than six weeks duration (Carter, 2002). These numbers are likely to increase with the ageing population of Australia. The self drive market phenomena has become a huge market, particularly in North America with retirees known as "snowbirds" (McHugh & Mings, 1992; Vincent & De Los Santos, 1990). These "snowbirds" are seasonal migrants moving from the snow belt in northern U.S. and Canada to spend the winter n the southern states, particularly Arizona, Texas and Florida. While estimates of numbers vary, it is probably in the millions. For example, during the winter of 1993-1994 an estimated 220,000 retirees moved to Phoenix, Arizona, of which one third resided in Recreational Vehicle resorts (Mings & McHugh, 1995). Similarly the Rio Grande valley in Texas had some 66,000 Recreational Vehicle sites by 1990 (Vincent & De Los Santos, 1990). Clearly this forms a major segment of the post retiree recreational market. Snowbirds remain in the designated resort for up to four months. The literature raises a number of interesting questions. What are the motivational patterns of the Australian Grey Nomads? To what extent can the snowbird phenomena be imposed on the Australian self-drive market of retirees? Are we talking about the same phenomena or a different market segment? This paper reports the results of a qualitative study of Australian grey nomad travel motivation