Strategic Participatory Communication and Development Engagement and Empowerment

This book is a major and innovative contribution to strategic communication research and practice. With solid empirical foundations in local communities in the Global South and particularly Indonesia, the authors demonstrate the value of participatory communication when planning and implementing development projects. At the communicative core lies a mission to empower local communities by giving them a significant voice in decision-making, which in the long run also increases success for those funding developments.

- Dr. Jesper Falkheimer, Professor of Strategic Communication (Lund University, Sweden), President (European Public Relations Education and Research Association, 2024 and 2025)

Strategic Participatory Communication and Development: Engagement and Empowerment" combines insight based on "mainstream" engagement models predominantly developed in the Northern Hemisphere with findings and analyses from the Global South, particularly research done in Indonesia, where empowerment needs to be at the core of engagement to achieve meaningful outcomes. This vast archipelago of currently 280 million ethnically diverse people inhabiting a chain of islands stretching the same distance as London - Baghdad in one political entity, has for years been under-represented in academic treatises on community issues. This book by two outstanding academics, professors Anne Gregory and Gregoria Yudarwati is an essential contribution to fill this gap.

- Noke Kiroyan, Chairman (Kiroyan Partners and Kreab Indonesia), member of Global Strategic Communications Advisory, Kreab Worldwide