1st Edition

More than Bouncing Back Examining Community Resilience Theory and Practice

Edited By Anne Cafer, John J. Green, Gary Goreham Copyright 2023

    As the concept of community resilience moves from the margins of practice and theoretical research to more mainstream scholarship, critical issues of conceptualization and use emerge. This is particularly true at the intersection of community development practice and community resilience theory. This book teases out limitations with current conceptualizations of community resilience, offers enhanced and alternative conceptualizations, and presents compelling case studies of new conceptualizations in action. This book is a starting place for scholarly conversations about the role of community resilience in community development practice. The frameworks presented here, will continue to gain more support in academic and non-academic arenas as resilience rhetoric increases in popularity. However, it is crucial for community practitioners to use these frameworks to actively cultivate resilience in their communities by building adaptive capacity in systematic ways. To move the field of community resilience forward, it is critical to understand the nuances of context and conditions in communities and how broader conceptualizations of resilience account for and utilize context to build adaptive capacity. This book was originally published as a special issue in the journal Community Development.

    Introduction

    Anne Cafer, John J. Green, and Gary Goreham

    The Limits of Current Models

    1. Using disaster recovery knowledge as a roadmap to community resilience

    Sarah Jo Bundy Kirkpatrick

    2. The limits of resilience in US community responses to recent drought events

    Theresa M. Jedd

    3. Community resilience: A meta-study of international development rhetoric in emerging economies

    Rachel Haggard, Anne Cafer, and John Green

    Reconceptualizing and Measuring Resilience

    4. Community resilience and community development: What mutual opportunities arise from interactions between the two concepts?

    Jim Cavaye and Helen Ross

    5. A Community Resilience Framework for community development practitioners building equity and adaptive capacity

    Anne Cafer, John Green, and Gary Goreham

    6. Exploring the relationships between local agrifood system resilience, multiple measures of development, and health in the Southern United States

    John J. Green, Jim Worstell, Caroline Canarios, Rachel Haggard, Katrina Alford, and Sydney Bush

    Turning Theory into Action: Building Resilience

    7. Can community interventions change resilience? Fostering perceptions of individual and community resilience in rural places

    Marianna Markantoni, Artur Adam Steiner, and John Elliot Meador

    8. Agents of change—together: Using agent-based models to inspire social capital building for resilient communities

    Linda Shenk, Caroline Krejci, and Ulrike Passe

    Biography

    Anne Cafer is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Mississippi, USA.

    John J. Green, formerly with the University of Mississippi, is Director and Professor with the Southern Rural Development Center and Mississippi State University, USA.

    Gary Goreham is Emeritus Professor at North Dakota State University, USA.