4: Community Development with Migrant and Refugee Women¹

This chapter presents a literature review that offers a critical analysis of community development practice in the austerity era, and how it relates to community engagement with migrant and refugee women. The chapter considers the current context of disparate and under-funded practice, and the need for bottom-up engagement with refugee and migrant women. It draws on key debates in community development such as those relating to focusing on assets vs needs and on bottom-up vs top-down practice. It presents a critique of top-down deficit-focused practice and offers an argument for a bottom-up approach that focuses on both needs and assets so that marginalised migrant women's needs are not ignored and they are empowered to draw on their own potential in responding to them.