Stories from community cultural development, apocryphal or emblematic? Mining the seams of personal practice

The practice of Community Cultural Development (CCD) is shaped by ideals, ethical standards and socially democratic values. Principles of doing good, altruism, social change, participation, collaboration, even ‘community’ itself are embedded as the dominant operating paradigms. CCD practice has thus attracted a number of assumptions and operational touchstones in its brief history. Drawing on stories from 40 years of CCD work, I question how well have I lived up to these standards in my own practice. These stories focus on several specific projects including: The Ribbons of Steel project marking the closure of BHP Steelmaking in Newcastle in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), my writer-in-residency at Windale (NSW), my time with Pipi Storm Childrens’ Circus, and my work with Australian Aboriginal communities. In undertaking this journey the essential questions I address are: How can stories reveal a deeper understanding of the principles of our work? What can be understood from these stories of our relationship to the communities in which we work? Such questions require a deep reflection upon and analysis of my own career. Identifying and investigating the underlying philosophical principles, interrogating how well or not I have applied them, and what lessons I have learned in the struggle to cleave to a principled approach lies at the core of this thesis. While I approach this examination from a particularly individual perspective, I situate my work in the broader practice of CCD to demonstrate how the stories may be emblematic – seams that we can mine for knowledge. In so doing I arrive at a deeper understanding and clarity around what are the essential and foundation impulses and principles of CCD work.