Please note that there are two different conference venues: June 14/15 - Century City Conference Centre June 16 - Kirstenbosch Conference Centre (transportation available)
Abstract #110 Title: A culture-based understanding of community resilience in the Global South: A qualitative study of grassroots organizing during Ebola in Liberia Presenter: Joelle Cruz (University of Colorado at Boulder, USA) Introduction: This study provides a case of community resilience during the 2014-2015 Ebola crisis in Monrovia, Liberia. It focuses on the grassroots level, which has seldom been considered in both popular and lay coverages of the epidemic. Methods: The researcher conducted 40 single in-depth qualitative interviews with members of a community task force and community members in Matadi, Central Monrovia. Of interest, was finding out how community members defined resilience for themselves and the types of strategies they deployed to enact resilience. Findings: The two main strategies of resilience are: (1) shutting down community and (2) creating an extreme sense of control. The study shows that these strategies of resilience worked well because of an older trauma; the Liberian war (1989-2003). In conclusion, the study brings forth a culture-based approach to resilience.
Abstract #7 Title: Community resilience in a belief-based community: the story of European Jewish communities Presenter: David Gidron and Russell Wolkind (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Israel) Introduction: Across Europe, Jewish communities are operating in an increasingly challenging context. Emerging trends bring crises from within the community and the external broader environment. While most community resilience programs are geographic in nature, our communities were in need of a different model, suitable for a belief-based community Methods: Our community resilience model of 8 core capacities puts a strong emphasis on those “softer” social capacities of community. They are: community leadership; community narrative and communications; organizational competence; social capital; preparedness and security; sense of community; and, community values. The program consists of constructing a community resilience profile which then serves as the base of an intervention program geared at strengthening 2-3 of the community’s resilience capacities. Initial results of the program point to the importance of the model both for the community’s routine and in their preparedness and capability in dealing with crisis situations Findings: We believe that this model is relevant and important for any belief-based community. Furthermore, by embracing a different framework of community, much can be contrasted to the more traditional city-based resilience models.
Abstract #129 Title: Community resilience as emergent: Examining five interlinked capacities Presenter: Lucy Faulkner (University of Exeter, UK) Co-Authors: Katrina Brown, Tara Quinn, Introduction: Social-ecological systems thinking suggests resilience is to be understood as an emergent property of human-environment relationships. However, empirically illustrating diverse interactions within a complex system and how it relates to community resilience is lacking. We assess how different resilience-promoting capacities interact to confer resilience in two communities in Cornwall, UK. Methods: We focused on five capacities, previously identified in community resilience literature: place attachment, leadership, community cohesion and efficacy, community networks, and knowledge and learning. We conducted a structured survey with 170 residents in Boscastle and Wadebridge to elicit the importance of these capacities for community resilience, and what factors characterised each capacity. This was complemented by two focus group discussions, one in each location, which probed discussion around relationships between capacities. Survey responses were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 21). Thematic analysis based on manual deductive and inductive coding was conducted for interrogation of focus group transcripts. Findings: Our results show how residents draw on these capacities in different combinations, enabling resilience in distinct ways. This holds relevance for the Global South by presenting a more integrated and socially nuanced understanding of community resilience that brings together developmental and social-ecological systems perspectives to better inform science and practice.
