Strengthening community resilience through participation – a conceptual exploration

Through its increasing use, community resilience as a concept is interpreted differently across disciplines. In this paper, an indicator-based assessment framework is developed, to find an understanding of community resilience as a social dynamic that is informed by multiple theoretical approaches. It breaks community resilience down into manageable components. Understood proactively, it enables communities to tap into diverse resource pools in times of change and uncertainty. Its individual, social, governance and economic dimensions are interdependent upon each other and present community as a dynamic process. This process is impacted by drivers such as the polycrisis, which society needs to be resilient against. Participation is discussed as a potentially enabling factor to strengthen community resilience.