Professional Publications and Presentations
CPC believes it is critical to share the skills and approaches we are learning with teachers and other professionals around the world, in order to continue improving and deepening the field of participatory development. These papers, which were published in a range of professional journals, share CPC’s unique work with statewide, national and international audiences of both academics and practitioners.
Grassroots Support Organizing in Western North Carolina
Grassroots support organizing refers to the work of helping strengthen the web of grassroots groups, leaders, and networks that exists across a region. This paper looks at one particular approach to grassroots support organizing, developed at the Center for Participatory Change.
Participatory Change: An Integrative Approach to Community Practice
by Paul Castelloe, Thomas Watson, and Craig White, was published in the Journal of Community Practice. This paper features the most in-depth explanation of CPC's model, including its roots in community organizing, popular education, and participatory development; its underlying values and core principles; and ten steps in the participatory change process.
Participatory Development: Approaches from the Global South and the United States
Josh Prokopy and Paul Castelloe, appeared in the Journal of the Community Development Society (JCDS). This paper reviews models of participatory development used in the global South and in the US, then develops a set of practice principles for nonprofit organizations aiming to make their work more participatory.
Participatory Development: Supporting Local Grassroots Efforts
by Paul Castelloe, was published in a special edition of the North Carolina Geographer that focused on Remaking Tobacco-Dependent Communities. This paper, which was also presented at a conference at Eastern Carolina University, highlights the principles and processes of CPC's model of participatory development, and applies those to agriculture-based economic development efforts.