This article analyses the ways community development in Australia has succumbed to neoliberal forces resulting in conservative or reformist practice. Ledwith (Community Development in Action: Putting Freire into Practice, 2015, Policy Press, UK.) argues that popular education theory is a useful vehicle through which community development can recover its emancipatory intentions and take on a more critical role in strategising and acting for structural changes. This article reports on a participatory action research project undertaken in Australia in 2017, to explore what the Popular Education tradition could bring to the field of community development within south-east Queensland. The research aim was to theory-test the possibilities of popular education for influencing contemporary community development in an era of hegemonic service-delivery and welfare work within Australia. Practitioners were exposed to a series of popular education workshops, grounding a clear experiential model for taking theory into action that can advance social justice agendas and further their work. Findings from the project reveal that it is possible to stimulate thinking about radical practice with popular education theory. Moreover, exploration of the theory needs forums and communities of practice for collective critical reflection. Such processes provide both theoretical knowledge and collegial support for practitioners to experiment with actions in line with the radical tradition, and thus develop a radical praxis to resist the worst elements of neoliberalism.

中文翻译：

---

通过大众教育行动研究重新构想和激进昆士兰东南部的社区发展实践

本文分析了澳大利亚社区发展如何屈服于导致保守或改革实践的新自由主义力量。Ledwith (Community Development in Action: Putting Freire in Practice, 2015, Policy Press, UK.) 认为大众教育理论是一种有用的工具，通过它社区发展可以恢复其解放意图，并在制定战略和行动中扮演更重要的角色结构性变化。本文报道了 2017 年在澳大利亚开展的参与式行动研究项目，旨在探索大众教育传统可以为昆士兰东南部的社区发展领域带来什么。该研究的目的是在理论测试大众教育在澳大利亚霸权服务提供和福利工作时代影响当代社区发展的可能性。从业者参加了一系列大众教育研讨会，为将理论付诸行动建立了清晰的经验模型，以推进社会正义议程并进一步推动他们的工作。该项目的结果表明，可以用大众教育理论激发对激进实践的思考。此外，理论的探索需要论坛和实践社区进行集体批判性反思。这些过程为实践者提供了理论知识和学院支持，可以根据激进的传统尝试行动，