The traditional view of globalisation must be reconceptualised in the light of the challenges of the new century. These include the resurgence of tribalism, in the forms of nationalisms and fundamentalisms, the perceived threat of terrorism, and the environmental crisis, including the threat of global warming. The need to respond to these challenges (and their perceived threat to the lifestyles and comfort of the west), has led to new political and social movements which threaten to marginalise the ‘last century’ ideals of social justice, human rights and peace. The nature of globalisation, and of the responses to it, are significantly altered as a result, and ideas of ‘community’, and hence of community development, are thereby transformed.
Community development needs to address these new challenges while at the same time maintaining its commitment to its social justice value base. This requires a rethinking of the way community work links the global and the local, beyond the ‘globalisation from below’ ideas of the 1990s and a mere opposition to economic fundamentalism. Three components of community development can act as foci for this reformulation of the global/local: