Community Resilience 2.0: The Process of Resiliency Building in Resource Dependent Communities in Developing Countries: Enhancing the Theory

Community resilience refers to a community’s ability to withstand exogenous disruptions as a result of environmental, social and economic change. A community needs three components to be resilient: resources, capacity and action. We believe that the theory on community resilience mainly focuses on prerequisite dimensions, rather than on resiliency building. In this regard, we argue that more insights need to be acquired in the community’s adaptive dynamics across space and time scales. Firstly, we suggest exploring how existing system’s structures at lower and higher spatial scales enable or restrict the resiliency building process. We believe that Margaret Archer’s ‘morphogenetic cycle’ and ‘stratified view of a human being’ can provide insights. Both frameworks refer to social change as a dialectical relationship between agency and structure. Secondly, we suggest exploring how a connection with a larger temporal scale influences a community’s resilience. We discuss the role of social memory and social learning in resiliency building. Finally, recommendations for future research are offered.