Community development, social sustainability, and resilience
My interest in researching the interwoven topics of community development, social sustainability, and resilience lies in my experience working in as a Peace Corps agroforestry extension agent in Malawi, and as a non-profit professional and volunteer in Denver, Colorado. While environmental challenges are immense, I see these as interlinked with struggles communities experience in improving livelihoods, much of which relates to the role of power in defining problems and solutions.
It is vital to ask "sustainable/resilience for whom?" and critically examine the assumptions we make about these concepts in relation to community development. Working on a number of projects with Dr. Michael Carolan, we studied the mediating role of cultural and symbolic values between human and material resources in community development, and the implications therein. The concept of "Relational Resilience" arose out of this work. This approach emphasizes the need to examine network diversity, equity, and relationality while working to determine resilience.
I have worked to improve thinking around social sustainability as a postdoc research fellow at the Centre for Sustainability and a team member of the New Zealand Sustainability Dashboard. Through a number of cases, Dr. Hugh Campbell, Dr. Katharine Legun, and I have developed a performative approach to social sustainability indicators.
Publications related to this research