Abstract

This paper introduces and discusses the concept of animatorship in
relation to rural enterprise and development. At its simplest level,
animatorship is the art of animating others to achieve their objectives.
We develop and apply this concept to understanding community
development and community enterprise, with a specific emphasis on
rural communities. We present a descriptive, conceptual study of a new
concept i.e. animation in the context of entrepreneurship. The fieldwork
for this paper took the form of structured face-to-face interviews with
community development workers in November-January 2015/2016.
These workers actively stimulate, motivate and inspire others and
orchestrate situations and people to bring about change through
others, not merely doing things for them. They build environments and
relationships in which people grow, directing and focusing energies
to develop and empower people’s emotional and social lives and
relationships through patient, open listening and group conversation.