The Sustainable Outport: A Model for Community Development?

Abstract

Within an “alternative development” approach to social and economic development—an approach that suggests an alternative to both of the mainstream theories of development, modernization, and dependency—the main aim of this article is to describe a model of small community development, the “sustainable outport.” The model is an abstraction based on small coastal fishing communities in Newfoundland and Labrador called “outports.” Real outports display some of the features of the model, but the model also incorporates a number of changes that would make outports more economically viable, self-reliant, and capable of sustainable long-term development. The model proposed here takes off from the work of a recent Newfoundland Royal Commission on Employment and Unemployment. The title of the Commission's Report, Building on Our Strengths (Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1986), reflects a bottom-up alternative approach to development, and the idea of the sustainable outport is implicit in the Report's general philosophy as well as its discussion of rural development. The aims of this article are: (a) to make the model of the sustainable outport explicit; (b) to compare the ideal model to the real situation of Newfoundland outports, and thereby show what changes would be needed to bring them in line with the model of sustainability; and, (c) to discuss in a tentative and exploratory way the applicability of the model to other small communities in Canada, especially native communities.