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THE KÓSPALLAG OLD HOUSE PROJECT AS PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH... 255
Community development
Community development was not originally a priority. However, it soon became
clear that to achieve our goals, we needed to build a community of people who
would take ownership of the Old House, commit to maintaining it and fill it with
activities. So the core team was formed of ‘do-it-yourself’ community developers
who began to learn the skills of the trade. It soon became clear to us that the
anthropological perspective and community development are related fields. The
developments that result from such a process tend to have an explicit community¬
developing dimension, or, in the case of physical investments, necessarily involve
the creation of the community that fills them.
This was made possible by the particular circumstance that we were invited to
participate in the research, as we are known locally, by the ‘ethnographic’, ‘old
cottage’ team (now consisting of a large number of young professionals, not only
ethnographers but also sociologists, human ecologists, biologists, rural development
experts and people with many other qualifications). The three NGOs in the village
also had the aim of setting up a country house in their statutes, but lacked the
requisite ethnographic expertise. Thus, a fortunate meeting, a brainstorming session
and a mutual friendship between the professional leader of the research and two
leading local NGOs was our ticket to the village. Their invitation is what makes
our effective work possible. We often feel that without their role as a permanent
bridge, we would have no place in the village, but that at the very least, our work
would be much less successful and embedded. It is primarily through them that
we began to understand the village’s past, present and complex human relations;
their role, although it has changed (since they have become part of the municipal
board), is still crucial.