Margaret.Gillan@nuim.ie
As a young art student in Belfast
in the mid 1970's I was challenged by the stark contrasts between the realities
of a war zone, prevailing censorship in the Republic, the priviledge of
education, and the importance of voice. It's perhaps no surprise then, that I
became involved in community media – in London from the mid 1980's, and iwhen I
returned to Ireland, from 1996 until 2012, I worked as Co-ordinator for
Community Media Network (CMN, Ireland), an all-Ireland not-for-profit
organisation promoting use of media for social justice. The role demanded
engagement with a wide range of actors – learners, community based activists
and organisations, academics, institutions, and public authorities - and a
passion for emancipatory and informal learning. While CMN's operation are now
at a minimum, I still maintain some activities with members in a voluntary
capacity.
Community media itself as a
concept needed visibility in Ireland, CMN's magazine “Tracking”,
created a space where collective ownership of media was promoted and where the
use of media as a tool for social justice and community development could be
explored. As Editor I facilitated a collaborative process for each issue,
designed to bring activists together in a collective effort and to expand CMN
as a network [1].
Like many community initiatives
in Ireland throughout the 1990's and into the 2000's, the CMN project combined
grant-aided project work (through which professional workers were employed)
with labour schemes, engaging with job-seeking participants and with learners.
A skill sharing ethos supported everyone in this environment and for a number
of years it was an enjoyable and rewarding project, thriving on diversity and a
strong mix of class, gender, and nationality. Transnational networking was
important to CMN, providing key inputs to training programmes, campaigns and
lobby actions for the sector; it was also a means whereby CMN could draw
together Irish activists who otherwise may not have met[2].
After 2000, CMN's focus moved to
establishing community television, my PhD research project (2001-2010)
supported the development of community television in Ireland using PAR
methodologies. The fieldwork was situated within CMN, working with its network
members, and within a campaign that saw three community channels established in
the RoI with their all-Ireland network – Community Television Association (CTA)
from 2006. As the first ten years of CTV
licensing now draws to an end, CTA links with UK and EU networks to
support activists dealing with a changing technological as well as political
environment.
Our context is an Ireland in
which a more than twenty years old community development sector has been
decimated; at the same time large movements are emerging in a way not seen
since Carnsore. I think it important to document and understand how those
community development activists are engaging with new movements in the current
political context, the challenges this brings to their community organising,
how the experience of community development in Ireland is being re-viewed, and
what learning spaces and practices are now evolving.
[1] Issues
of “Tracking” are now available on the
Internet Archive, see http://web.archive.org/web/20040202005942/http://cmn.ie/cmnsitenew/current/winter%200203/index_tracking.htm
[2] Projects included all-Ireland training
programmes in media using community development methodologies, some of which
reported to EU funding programmes e.g. Integra; Information Society, and Year
against Racism, all of these were integrated with the Community Employment
Project and participants took an active role in the projects.
