Building Healthy Communities

Dear Colleagues,

We invite submissions to a Special Issue of the electronic journal Societies, published by MDPI, on the topic of “Building Healthy Communities”. “Healthy” communities is a catchall term that is used to illustrate how the integration and collaboration of multiple partners are coordinated to meet the basic needs of residents in an area. Healthy communities involve the integration of ecosystems that cut across economic, physical, and social spheres. “Healthy communities” also foster equity for disadvantaged persons and groups, allowing them to participate in and contribute to the public square. In most cases, the process of community building involves organizing in a “bottom-up” model using methodologies such as those in the tradition of Saul Alinsky (Fisher, et al 2018) or Kretzmann and McKnight’s (1993) Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). Assets are identified at the grassroots level so that they empower economic and social change and community power is decentralized. However, these communities can also be part of governmental efforts to enable vertical integration of change efforts, so that the voices of local people are heard and so that they are given power in decision-making processes.

The focus of this Special Issue is on organizational arrangements that build the health of communities. This Special Issue is influenced by the philosophy of communitarianism as articulated by Amitai Etizioni (1996) and expressed by papers presented at the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (https://sase.org/news/in-memory-of-amitai-etzioni/). Values that strengthen basic social units like the family and the neighborhood are highlighted in a communitarian approach.  Organization helps to link elements of a community together within the locality, between localities, and vertically to more encompassing systems.

We, the Guest Editors, have been part of a group of scholars who have explored the varieties of effective local organizations (Cnaan and Milofsky 2006; 2018). We continue, however, to lack a base of well-crafted case studies that show how local organizations work, what makes them effective, and what strategies or plans inform their development. We need a better understanding of how idiosyncratic, local cases can scale up to provide effective community development on a larger scale. For this, we need more effective theories of local organizations.

Authors are encouraged to submit abstracts of their proposed papers to the Guest Editors for initial determination of fit for this Special Issue no later than October 31, 2024. Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by November 15, 2024. Full papers should be submitted by June 15, 2025. These papers will then be sent for peer review by the Editors of Societies, with editorial decisions being finalized no later than 60 days after full submission. It is anticipated that the electronic version of accepted papers for this Special Issue will be published by August 15, 2025.

References

Cnaan, R.A. and C. Milofsky (eds) (2006).  Handbook of Community Movements and Local Organizations.  New York: Springer.

Cnaan, R.A. and C. Milofsky (eds) (2018).  Handbook of Community Movements and Local Organizations in the 21st Century.  Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Etzioni, A. (1996).  The New Golden Rule.  Community and Morality in a Democratic Society. New York: Basic Books.

Fisher, R.; J. DeFilippis; and E. Shragge (2018).  “Contested community: A selected and critical history of community organizing.”  Ch. 17, pp. 281-297 in R.A. Cnaan and C. Milofsky (eds.), Handbook of Community Movements and Local Organizations in the 21st Century.  Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Kretzmann, J.P. and J. McKnight (1993). Building Communities from the Inside Out : A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets. Evanston, IL:  Northwestern University, Institute for Policy Research, Asset-Based Community Development Institute.

Shaw, R. and K. Goda (2004). “From disaster to sustainable civil society: The Kobe experience.”  Disasters 28 (1): 16-40. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0361-3666.2004.00241.x?casa_token=scGRi9WseIgAAAAA:Zz9xb6Cfnynmul9INPXxxncwuA9ibLnMgFVIf4aCgiOEu3nANuLOHGQwxvs3-FpOkIIXOLmEy6YO5r7-.

Contributions have to be within one of the three categories of papers (article, conceptual paper, or review) of the journal and address the topic of the Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Carl Milofsky
Dr. Brian Holland
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• healthy communities
• community organizations
• communitarianism
• social capital
• values and community