Community Development Journal: Editorial. Tobba Therkildsen Sudmann og Jan-Kåre Breivik: Why a special issue on contemporary community work in Scandinavia?
"In this introduction we argue that present-day Scandinavian community work, e.g. the small-scale local bottom-up approaches to contemporary societal challenges, can make valuable contributions to global sustainability and our common future by facilitating creativity, joy, and communitas. By highlighting joy and creativity for social change, this Special Issue underscores the interconnectedness between global challenges and happiness, concepts when paired add new tools to the community worker’s toolbox. The argument is substantiated by a discussion of the common denominators in the eight different cases of practical community work from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and the theoretical discussion of the role of the civil society in developed welfare states included in this Special Issue. The introduction to this Special Issue commences with a recapitulation of the ‘rebirth’ of community work in Norway after 2000, followed by a discussion of creativity, joy and communities. The next two sections present the generative themes emerging for the collected articles and discuss the challenges ahead. The last section briefly introduces the articles and shows how they answer the call for new theoretical and practical tools and approaches for the future community worker."