Social relations among community fields is never static. Change is happening everywhere, sometimes intentional but often unplanned. The rates of change also vary from community to community. There are also various causes of changes in the community; environmental factors, culture, social movement, conflict, technology, diffusion of information, need for adaptation, and so on. Theoretically, community system has a dual structure. One side is designed for evaluation and change. The other hand is designed for stability, for regular performance, and for predictability (Cook, 1994). When these two sides interact, tension is usually experienced between them.
Stability can be defined at the ecosystem level and the species level. Variation among species in their response to such fluctuation is an essential requirement for ecosystem stability. Evidence from multiple ecosystems suggests that biological diversity acts to stabilize ecosystem functioning in the face of environmental change (Cleland, 2011). Similar to this ecosystem theory, recent social research also has found that diversity and integrity of social, ecological and economic aspects of the system are essential for sustainable community development (Dale & Sparkes, 2010).
On the other words, we can see that the Sustainable Community Development is a process of social change which contains the complex relationship between the diversity of “interaction field” (individual action, social units, agent-models, micro-system) and “concrete collectivity” (organizational structure, social system, community field, macro-system). The purpose of this intentional change is to achieve the aims of sustainable communities (a healthy environment, a prosperous economy, and social well-being) through the five dimensions: (1) increasing local economic (2) self-reliance (3) a reduction in the use of technology (4) protection and enhancement of biological diversity/natural resources, and (5) social justice (Wilkinson, 1991., Bridger & Luloff, 1999., Power, 2005).
Just as the social field is constantly changing and always interact with other social fields (Flint, et.al. 2010), so that community development work in every area (community, regional, and global) will always raise tension and conflict between stability and change, within and across the fields. To some extent, communities have a cycle and transition naturally. Communities also have the capacity to reorganize itself to steer away from disruption, chaos, and disorganization that so-called as community resilience to respond the changes resulting from a particular stressor that affects their living conditions (Matarrita-Cascante & Trejos, 2013).
In the context of rural America, the struggle of the small-town community to maintains their places with all of the difficulties is an example of community resilience. They try to take what remains and make it works (Chouch, 2016). Collectivity is the biggest challenge of the communities in rural America to adapt to the massif social and political changes and preserve their economic and ecological sustainability. In the context of social research, because of the diversity and heterogeneity of interactions and interest among fields, a variety of social interaction models is being developed by researcher and scientist based on multidisciplinary approach (computer models of artiļ¬cial societies). In recent years, many researchers use dynamic systems and evolutionary game theory to dealing with a rational choice theory and closing the methodological gap between agent models and system models (BenDor, et.al. 2009).
Citation
BenDor, Todd, et.al. 2009. Ecological and Economic Sustainability in Fishery Management: A Multi-Agent Model for Understanding Competition and Cooperation. Journal of Ecological Economics, 68, pp. 1061-1073
Bridger, J.C. and A.E. Luloff. 1999. Toward and Interactional Approach to Sustainable Community Development. Journal of Rural Studies 15, pp. 377-387
Cook, James B. 1994. Community Development Theory. The University of Missouri Extension - Department of Community Development
Couch, Julianne. 2016. The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century. University of Iowa Press. Iowa City
Cleland, E. E. 2011. Biodiversity and Ecosystem Stability. Nature Education Knowledge 3(10):14
Dale, Ann, and Jennie Sparkes. 2010. The “Agency” of Sustainable Community Development. Community Development Journal. Oxford University Press
Flint, Courtney G. et. al. 2010. Extending the Concept of Community Interaction to Explore Regional Community Fields. Journal of Rural Sciences. Southern Rural Sociological Association.
Matarrita-Cascante, David, and Bernardo Trejos. 2013. Community Resilience in Resource Dependent Communities: a Comparative Case Study. Journal of Environmental and Planning, Vol 45, pp. 1387-1402
Power, Anne. 2005. Sustainable Communities and Sustainable Development: A Review of the Sustainable Communities Plan. UK: Sustainable Development Commission
Wilkinson, Kenneth. P. 1991. The Community in Rural America. Middleton – Wisconsin. Social Ecology Press
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