Unlocking rural potential: Identifying barriers and enablers for transformational capacity towards increased resilience within European rural communities
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
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Date
2024
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Master's Programme in Creative Sustainability
Language
en
Pages
64
Series
Abstract
Rural communities in Europe are facing complex challenges due to global crises, often accompanied by local challenges such as population decline or infrastructure deficits (Adam-Hernández, 2021). Some municipalities are better equipped to overcome these challenges, a phenomenon experts refer to as 'resilience.' This study attempts to conceptualise resilience in an interdisciplinary context and introduces a holistic strategic understanding of the term. This definition emphasises the ability of communities to transform themselves, not only to adapt to disruption but also to develop the community into a desirable state. Building on this understanding, the enabling and constraining factors that influence the transformative capacity of rural communities are analysed. Using an inductive thematic analysis that follows a grounded theory approach, a theoretical understanding of the relationship between the factors is developed. For this, twelve semi-structured interviews with rural development experts are conducted. The identified factors span four overarching categories: Mental transformation, structural transformation, asset structures and interventions for effective transformation. The findings show that there is a need to promote collaborative practices and build capacity to increase the resilience of communities before problems become acute. Furthermore, they point to the importance of flexible, adaptable strategies and the development of novel policy support structures to support bottom-up initiatives and committed individuals at an early stage. Future research can be expanded geographically and address specific factors for building resilience in differing rural areas. At the same time, the development of a knowledge base is recommended to support local actors with resources, planning methods and best practices to strengthen community resilience and transformation capacity.Description
Supervisor
Jalas, MikkoThesis advisor
Villaman, NataliaKeywords
rural communities, resilience, transformation, systems approach, boundary critique, rural development