IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i12p5219-d1418082.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reframing Resilience Narratives for (Rural) Communities Using the Actantial Model

Author

Listed:
  • Luc Ampleman

    (Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Faculty of Geography and Geology, Jagiellonian University, 30-387 Kraków, Poland)

  • Walter Timo de Vries

    (Department Aerospace and Geodesy, School of Engineering and Design, Technical University of Munich, 80333 München, Germany)

Abstract

As polities of all kinds are under pressure to achieve socio-environmental sustainability and resilience, existing assessment tools diagnosing communities’ vitality assets and vulnerabilities face challenges. These include grappling with incomplete data, incongruent models, and diverse indicator schemes from various scientific and professional domains. Moreover, these assessments draw upon multiple, sometimes unclear, and occasionally overlapping conceptualisations of ‘sustainability’ and ‘resilience’. This complexity makes monitoring system dynamics difficult, particularly in smaller rural communities with limited resources. This essay addresses this science policy and epistemic dilemma by proposing Greimas’s actantial model as a solution. The model, initially designed for understanding language and stories, is adapted to connect and integrate diverse data and indicator narratives across disciplines to inform policies at various levels of governance. This essay discusses recent debates on the conceptualisation of sustainability/resilience and its associated challenges, exploring how Greimas’s model may allow more constructive dialogue about conflicting views on resilience and sustainability. The model is presented as a planning template to foster communication across disciplines, social actors, and polities. The conclusion emphasises the model’s simplicity as a tool to overcome jargon, bridge communication gaps, and provide guidance for smaller rural communities facing resource constraints in assessing and implementing initiatives for sustainability and resilience.

Suggested Citation

  • Luc Ampleman & Walter Timo de Vries, 2024. "Reframing Resilience Narratives for (Rural) Communities Using the Actantial Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(12), pages 1-22, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:12:p:5219-:d:1418082
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/12/5219/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/12/5219/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leslie Gillespie‐Marthaler & Katherine Nelson & Hiba Baroud & Mark Abkowitz, 2019. "Selecting Indicators for Assessing Community Sustainable Resilience," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(11), pages 2479-2498, November.
    2. Peter Horton & Garrett W. Brown, 2018. "Integrating evidence, politics and society: a methodology for the science–policy interface," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-5, December.
    3. Mazur, Christoph & Hoegerle, Yannick & Brucoli, Maria & van Dam, Koen & Guo, Miao & Markides, Christos N. & Shah, Nilay, 2019. "A holistic resilience framework development for rural power systems in emerging economies," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C), pages 219-232.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mujjuni, F. & Betts, T. & To, L.S. & Blanchard, R.E., 2021. "Resilience a means to development: A resilience assessment framework and a catalogue of indicators," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    2. Karaulova, Maria & Edler, Jakob, 2023. "Bringing research into policy: Understanding context-specific requirements for productive knowledge brokering in legislatures," Discussion Papers "Innovation Systems and Policy Analysis" 77, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    3. Rosário Couto Costa, 2019. "The place of the humanities in today’s knowledge society," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-5, December.
    4. Ray, Manojit & Chakraborty, Basab, 2019. "Impact of evolving technology on collaborative energy access scaling," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 13-27.
    5. Muhammad Sajjad & Zulfiqar Ali & Mirza Waleed, 2023. "Has Pakistan learned from disasters over the decades? Dynamic resilience insights based on catastrophe progression and geo-information models," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 117(3), pages 3021-3042, July.
    6. Daniel Perrucci & Hiba Baroud, 2020. "A Review of Temporary Housing Management Modeling: Trends in Design Strategies, Optimization Models, and Decision-Making Methods," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-19, December.
    7. Ming Zhong & Lu Xiao & Qian Zhang & Tao Jiang, 2021. "Risk Perception, Risk Communication, and Mitigation Actions of Flash Floods: Results from a Survey in Three Types of Communities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-23, November.
    8. S. E. Galaitsi & Jeffrey M. Keisler & Benjamin D. Trump & Igor Linkov, 2021. "The Need to Reconcile Concepts that Characterize Systems Facing Threats," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 3-15, January.
    9. Tom M. Logan & Seth D. Guikema, 2020. "Reframing Resilience: Equitable Access to Essential Services," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(8), pages 1538-1553, August.
    10. Perera, A.T.D. & Hong, Tianzhen, 2023. "Vulnerability and resilience of urban energy ecosystems to extreme climate events: A systematic review and perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    11. Xiaoping Zhou & Xiaotian Li & Xiaokun Gu, 2023. "How Does Urban-Rural Capital Flow Affect Rural Reconstruction near Metropolitan Areas? Evidence from Shanghai, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-16, March.
    12. Li, Kuanhong & Wang, Linping & Wang, Lianhui, 2024. "Consumption as the catalyst: Analyzing rural power infrastructure and agricultural growth through panel threshold regression and data-driven prediction," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 365(C).
    13. Justyna Chodkowska-Miszczuk & Maria Kola-Bezka & Agata Lewandowska & Stanislav Martinát, 2021. "Local Communities’ Energy Literacy as a Way to Rural Resilience—An Insight from Inner Peripheries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-18, April.
    14. Tan, Zhizhong & Wu, Bei & Che, Ada, 2023. "Resilience modeling for multi-state systems based on Markov processes," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    15. Paul M. Johnson & Corey E. Brady & Craig Philip & Hiba Baroud & Janey V. Camp & Mark Abkowitz, 2020. "A Factor Analysis Approach Toward Reconciling Community Vulnerability and Resilience Indices for Natural Hazards," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(9), pages 1795-1810, September.
    16. Jing Tan & Li Peng & Shili Guo, 2020. "Measuring Household Resilience in Hazard-Prone Mountain Areas: A Capacity-Based Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 152(3), pages 1153-1176, December.
    17. Ortega-Arriaga, P. & Babacan, O. & Nelson, J. & Gambhir, A., 2021. "Grid versus off-grid electricity access options: A review on the economic and environmental impacts," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    18. Oritseweyinmi Orighoye & Tanefa A. Apekey & Maria J. Maynard, 2023. "Informing Diet and Physical Activity Interventions with Family Involvement in an Urban Setting: Views of Children and Adults in Lagos, Nigeria," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-16, May.
    19. Jin‐Zhu Yu & Hiba Baroud, 2019. "Quantifying Community Resilience Using Hierarchical Bayesian Kernel Methods: A Case Study on Recovery from Power Outages," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(9), pages 1930-1948, September.
    20. Gangwal, Utkarsh & Dong, Shangjia, 2022. "Critical facility accessibility rapid failure early-warning detection and redundancy mapping in urban flooding," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:12:p:5219-:d:1418082. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.