Enhancing the analysis of rural community resilience: Evidence from community land ownership

1 project

Resilience, and specifically the resilience of (rural) communities, is an increasingly-ubiquitous concept, particularly in the contexts of resistance to shocks, climate change, and environmental disasters. The dominant discourse concerning (community) resilience centres around bounce-back from external shocks. In this paper, I argue that it is necessary to query this dominant, singular conceptualisation for two main reasons. Firstly, through reviewing the international literature, it is possible to construct a spectrum of (community) resilience research concepts from ‘reactive bounce-back’ through to ‘proactive human agency’, where the latter increasingly questions the reactive stance of much community resilience analysis. Secondly, the new findings I present from 17 community land trusts (CLTs) in Scotland demonstrate processes of proactive change being implemented by communities-of-place, rather than simply as reactions to external shocks or events. Communities' aimed-for outcomes are far wider than shock-absorption, and include deliberately building their skills and capacity-base in a context of constant change, rather than in anticipation of singular events. As a result of bringing together empirical findings with a wider review of the resilience literature, I conclude that to persist with only the dominant narrative of a reactive, shock-related definition of (community) resilience unnecessarily constrains our analysis, since it bypasses evident proactive processes and wider adaptability outcomes. I further conclude that we need to continue to problematise resilience as a concept, in order to be more accurate with its usage. This is important in itself, and, I argue, a necessary precursor to enhancing dialogue between resilience and other concepts such as social capital.

Article
2013
Journal of Rural Studies
Scotlands Rural College, Rural Society and Policy, the Land Economy, Environment and Society Research Group

Main themes / areas of study

  • Rural
  • Rural Community Resilience
  • Community Landownership
  • Bounceback
  • Proactive Human Agency

Country

  • Scotland

Vibrant Rural Communities

Completed
2025
  • Rural
  • Rural Community Resilience
  • Community Landownership
  • Bounceback
  • Proactive Human Agency
  • Scotland