A conceptual framework for investigating community wellbeing and resilience

Abstract

This article presents the conceptual basis for empirically testing the relationship between community wellbeing and resilience. Previous research has argued that rural communities facing rapid economic, social and environmental change need to be resilient to maintain or enhance their community wellbeing. However, it is often not clear what is meant by community wellbeing or resilience, and how they differ. Both concepts are often imprecise and seldom clearly distinguished from each other when placed in a theoretical context. Further, wellbeing and resilience are often assumed to be positively associated but this may not necessarily be the case (Amundsen, 2012; Armitage, Béné, Charles, Johnson, & Allison, 2012; Coulthard, 2012). The present analysis suggests that community resilience is best conceptualised as a type of functioning or process whereby community resources are mobilised in strategic ways by community agents in adaptive responses to change (e.g., Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche, & Pfefferbaum, 2008) and community wellbeing is best conceptualised as a state, which is hopefully enhanced as a result of community resilience. Rather than a direct correlation, the relationship might be iterative whereby poor wellbeing triggers a mobilising of resilience which in turn leads to future wellbeing. The article outlines the main dimensions of community wellbeing and resilience that require valid and reliable measurement to test the relationship. The implication of such a relationship is that communities might need to focus on resilience rather than current wellbeing to achieve future wellbeing.