Overarching Meta-Strategies for Community Engagement: PVE in Context

Abstract

Taking cue from the bottom-up approach, this article sets out to propose five over-arching meta PVE strategies for community engagement. Although all the proposed strategies are, in principle, applicable to all communities, it is crucial to bear in mind that community engagement, especially in the context of PVE must always prioritize indigenous values and local context. This is because each community has its own unique characteristics and it is neither possible nor advisable to create some generic, blanket or universal strategy. PVE strategies therefore, even the seemingly generic ones, must always be indigenous and specific to the local context. Keeping this in mind, the strategies proposed in this article are fairly sensitive and fully aware of this verity as each one of them not only constantly alludes to the importance of indigeneity and local context but also in many ways further strengthen the case for it. All proposed strategies are neither intended to be stringent nor designed to be exhaustive. On the contrary, they merely serve as helpful guidelines that are equally flexible and versatile, depending on the community and context they are respectively applied to.