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| 2. |
- Currie, Mags, et al.
(författare)
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Understanding the response to Covid-19 : exploring options for a resilient social and economic recovery in Scotland’s rural and island communities
- 2021
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This research considered the impacts of Covid-19 on rural and island communities, how resiliently they have responded; and the most effective ways forward for their recovery. Our research approach involved: interviewing people in key rural sectors then producing a map to identify factors of resilience. This map was used to identify case study communities. Interviews were undertaken in these communities to understand local perspectives.Rural and island communities have been vulnerable to the impacts of Covid. Specific factors that have increased their vulnerability include reliance on limited employment sectors, being located far from centralised services (e.g. hospitals), limited digital connectivity; and an ageing population. Communities with a more resilient response had some or all of the following features: a strong sense of community; community organisations and local businesses that have been responsive to local needs; the existence of strategic partnerships between community organisations and the public/private sector; and good digital connectivity.Covid-19 has brought rural vulnerabilities into sharp focus and these vulnerabilities are often connected. Strategic and joined-up partnerships between community, public and private sector organisations will remain important, as well as novel and flexible funding mechanisms to enable place-based and context-specific responses.This research highlighted nine actions that would assist rural and island communities to thrive in the future. These include: 1. Building on existing and new partnerships and supporting anchor organisations 2. Capitalising on and rewarding community spirit 3. Encouraging and supporting young people to move to rural and island communities 4. Retaining and enhancing digital connectivity opportunities 5. Supporting adaptable local businesses 6. Strategic partnerships with deliver place-based solutions 7. Continue to support diversification of the rural economy 8. Enhancing the knowledge base on local-regional vulnerabilities 9. Retaining a flexible, targeted and responsive approach to financial support.
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| 3. |
- Currie, Margaret, et al.
(författare)
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Understandings and applications of rural community resilience amongst Scottish stakeholders : introducing dual discourses
- 2022
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Ingår i: Community Development. - : Routledge. - 1557-5330 .- 1944-7485.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper considers understandings and applications of community resilience deployed by multiple stakeholders in rural Scotland. By exploring what stakeholders think rural community resilience means in theory and practice, we enhance existing understandings of the concept. Scottish policy has shifted towards neoliberalism and community empowerment, with the Government encouraging communities to play a proactive role in enhancing their own resilience. For this to occur successfully, we argue that it is important to understand the perspectives of multiple stakeholders in how they conceptualize community resilience, identify what practical factors they believe enhance community resilience, and provide a greater understanding of the mechanisms through which community resilience can be delivered. Drawing on data collected from focus groups and in-depth, semi-structured interviews, we question what resilience means and what factors can facilitate it in practice. We find that by examining the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, dual discourses of resilience emerge: the emergency which reflects the policy focus on short-term damage reduction, and the everyday which reflects the desire for more long-term adaptive capacities developing in response to gradual change in rural communities. We conclude that the discourse which stakeholders predominantly align with will affect how they understand, adopt, and practice the concept.
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| 4. |
- Glass, Jayne, et al.
(författare)
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Facilitating local resilience : case studies of place-based approaches in rural Scotland
- 2021
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This report explores the extent to which place-based approaches can deliver positive economic and social outcomes in Scotland’s rural areas and small towns. We studied five case studies of place-based approaches in rural Scotland:1. Tackling the climate emergency in Callander2. Strengthening Communities in the Western Isles3. A Heart for Duns: the changing role of a local development trust4. Partnership working for place-based policy: lessons from Initiative at the Edge5. Land reform policy and transformational community changePlace-based approaches in rural Scotland have enabled community capacity building, community ownership/management of land and assets, and partnership-working to deliver local outcomes and services. A flexible national and regional place-based policy framework can be supportive of local place-based approaches, but should acknowledge different local circumstances, assets and needs, and the lived experiences of local people.Place-based approaches require financial and other development support/advice in the early stages. This might be particularly in relation to locally-led community planning to address place-based needs, acquiring local community assets and creating links between local actors and broader regional/national policy processes. More flexible place-based policy frameworks should be developed at national and regional level which facilitate cross-sectoral working, break down silos and encourage collaboration between different actors and governance levels (including communities and local authorities).The research identifies four recommendations to enhance rural place-based approaches:1. Long-term, flexible investment in place-based approaches is needed to ensure the delivery of solutions rooted in community needs and local action.2. Communities need to be able to operate with a degree of autonomy to increase competence, capacity and confidence at the local level.3. This local autonomy needs support from national/regional levels over the long-term, by transferring resources, ensuring that the voices and experiences of communities are heard, and working in (equal) partnership across governance levels.4. There is a need for mechanisms by which the key features and requirements of national and regional policy are translated into something tangible and relevant at the local level.
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| 5. |
- Glass, Jayne, et al.
(författare)
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Translating community resilience theory into practice : A deliberative Delphi approach
- 2022
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Ingår i: Sociologia Ruralis. - : Wiley Blackwell. - 0038-0199 .- 1467-9523.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite the availability of important theoretical insights that could enhance the resilience of rural communities to complex challenges, there is a paucity of guidance on how to apply these insights in practice. This paper therefore presents and assesses a deliberative research process using the Delphi technique to elicit expert knowledge from 22 academics, community practitioners and policy makers working in roles related to community resilience delivery in rural Scotland. The participants co-produced an operational framework for community resilience, with support from researchers who facilitated the three-stage, interactive process. The methodology enabled participants to work together in an iterative and inclusive manner, culminating in the collective development of a conceptual framework consisting of eight resilience-enabling factors and corresponding criteria for monitoring change, which can be used to plan practical action and provide feedback to enable ongoing adaptation. The process also produced an in-depth understanding of participants’ perceptions of rural community resilience, identified key factors that enable or impede rural community resilience, analysed the potential to assess community resilience, and explored scale-related issues. The paper explores the implications of this framework for those working to make rural communities more resilient and reflects on the benefits and wider application of this type of research approach for developing shared understandings of complex concepts.
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| 6. |
- van Veelen, Bregje, et al.
(författare)
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Interventions on Democratizing Infrastructure
- 2021
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Ingår i: Political Geography. - : Elsevier. - 0962-6298 .- 1873-5096. ; 87
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This intervention seeks to revivify democratic thinking in political geography, through foregrounding and pluralising its material and temporal dimensions. At the same time, it speaks to a renewed centrality and relevance of infrastructure and infrastructural projects in political discourse. The contributions included here demonstrate how an infrastructural lens can offer new insights into democratic spaces, practices, and temporalities, offering more expansive versions of what it means to act politically. Specifically, these contributions intervene in existing geographical debates by bringing to the fore four underexplored dimensions of democratic governance: (im)materiality, connectivity, performativity, and temporality. In doing so, it develops a research agenda that broadens and regenerates thinking at the intersection of socio-spatial theory and democratic action and governance.
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