More than Bouncing Back: Examining Community Resilience Theory and Practice

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.

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.