6533b85bfe1ef96bd12bacf8

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Citizens' participation and community orientation – indicators of social sustainability of rural welfare services

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description

The article discusses the issues of social services in rural areas from a theoretical view point of sustainability paradigms of social work. The ecological crisis existing beyond the ongoing global economic crisis is not separated from the increasing urbanization and weakening perspectives in rural areas. The paper is based on results from a participatory action research project in Finland, which aims at strengthening social service provision in rural areas through citizens' participation and community-orientation. The neoliberal politics of centralization, marketization and privatization are heavily transforming rural regions also in the Nordic welfare states right now. The debates in the rural citizens' forums could be concluded in three tasks of the project's further agenda: a renewed democratic governance of social services, a radical turn towards the involvement of and respect for service users, and practical steps towards citizens as co-producers, especially in the form of village cooperatives. The ...