Recognizing Stewardship Practices as Indicators of Social Resilience: In Living Memorials and in a Community Garden

Abstract

Abstract:Resilience theory has received increased attention from researchers across a range of disciplines who have developed frameworks and articulated categories of indicators; however, there has been less discussion of how to recognize, and therefore support, social resilience at the community level, especially in urban areas. The value of urban environmental stewardship for supporting social-ecological functioning and improving quality of life in cities has been documented, but recognizing it as a strategy for strengthening social resilience to respond to future disturbances has not been fully explored. Here we address the question: How can social resilience indicators be operationalized as stewardship practices in an urban context? Using a deductive coding approach drawing upon existing resilience frameworks we analyze qualitative data from community managed-open spaces in the New York City area that have responded to various chronic presses and acute disturbances including a hurricane and a terrorist attack. In each case we identify and characterize the type of grounded, empirically observable stewardship practices that demonstrate the following indicators of social resilience at the community level: place attachment, social cohesion, social networks, and knowledge exchange and diversification. The process of operationalizing abstract indicators of social resilience has important implications for managers to support social (and ecological) resilience in the specific areas where stewardship takes place, as well as potentially having greater effects that bridge beyond the spatial and temporal boundaries of the site. We conclude by suggesting how researchers and practitioners might learn from our examples so they can recognize resilience in other sites in order to both inform research frameworks and strengthen practice and programming, while keeping larger institutional structures and context in mind.

Characterisation of Nature-Based Solutions for the Built Environment

“…It has been argued that the valuation of ecosystems has long been dominated by monetary explanations, neglecting other social perspectives [92,93]. It is critical that the social value of green spaces [94,95], and the effective methods to engage different ethnic groups, need to be established to mainstream nature based solutions for urban regeneration and development of the inclusive economy.…”

Seeding Social Capital? Urban Community Gardening and Social Capital

“…A totality of nineteen studies involve research from the US [2], [3], [7], [8], [55], [57][58][59], [61][62][63][64], [66], [68][69][70][71][72][73][74], six studies from Europe (three from the UK [1], [12], [75], two from Germany (Berlin) [5], [76] and one from Croatia [77]), four from Canada [56], [57], [65], [78], and four from Australia [4], [10], [67], [79]. This confirms a general tendency of a disproportionate mass of research from the US on urban community gardening, compared to Europe and elsewhere.…”

“…As table 2 reveals, six of the studies explicitly examine social capital [1][2][3][4], [18], [55], while others focus on closely related concepts or phenomena, such as networks [56][57][58][59], integration or adaption of migrants or other marginalized groups [10], [60], [61], social dimensions of sustainability [12], [62], neighborhood development [7], [8], [63], [64], and social aspects of health [65][66][67] and resilience [59], [68].…”

“…This confirms a general tendency of a disproportionate mass of research from the US on urban community gardening, compared to Europe and elsewhere. Furthermore, 27 studies are qualitative studies [1][2][3][4][5], [7], [10], [18], [56], [58], [59], [61], [62], [65][66][67][68][69][70][71], [73], [76]- [79], five studies are mixed-methods research [12], [63], [64], [72], [75], while only three articles comprises of mainly or entirely quantitative data [8], [55], [57].…”

The Impact of International Cooperative Initiatives on Biodiversity (ICIBs)

“…Several scholars have suggested that especially European and US cities now experience the next step in polycentric governance, where the involvement of citizens in greenspace governance further shifts from a focus on public participation in government policies towards increased active citizenship (Buijs and al. 2017;Dennis and James 2016;Andersson et al 2014;McMillen et al 2016;Chan, DuBois, and Tidball 2015). Indeed, Aichi Target 1 states that by 2020, at the latest, people are aware of the values of biodiversity and the steps they can take to conserve and use it sustainably.…”