TY - JOUR

T1 - “Who needs money if you got hands, if you got plants” Forming community resilience in two urban gardening networks in South Africa

AU - Wesselow, Maren

AU - Mashele, N'wa Jama

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

PY - 2019/12/1

Y1 - 2019/12/1

N2 - Community resilience is influenced by the structure of social networks in a community. In urban areas, social networks tend to be fragmented and diverse, and hence building community resilience is a challenge. Our objective is to shed light on how social network structures affect community resilience in two urban gardening groups in South Africa. The results of this qualitative study show that the two non-hierarchical groups place a strong emphasis on key personalities as leaders. The common motivation and shared values of the group help individuals overcome social heterogeneity and form trust. A decentralized network structure with different kinds of leaders helps group members divide power and responsibility; it also promotes a sense of ownership and capacity building in its members. Moreover, a no-money policy supports independence from access to financial resources, makes the group self-sufficient, and prevents conflict. Our results suggest that for a certain size of group, working in local clusters can create a decentralized network and a redundant leadership structure.

AB - Community resilience is influenced by the structure of social networks in a community. In urban areas, social networks tend to be fragmented and diverse, and hence building community resilience is a challenge. Our objective is to shed light on how social network structures affect community resilience in two urban gardening groups in South Africa. The results of this qualitative study show that the two non-hierarchical groups place a strong emphasis on key personalities as leaders. The common motivation and shared values of the group help individuals overcome social heterogeneity and form trust. A decentralized network structure with different kinds of leaders helps group members divide power and responsibility; it also promotes a sense of ownership and capacity building in its members. Moreover, a no-money policy supports independence from access to financial resources, makes the group self-sufficient, and prevents conflict. Our results suggest that for a certain size of group, working in local clusters can create a decentralized network and a redundant leadership structure.

KW - Community resilience

KW - Social networks

KW - South Africa

KW - Urban agriculture

KW - Western Cape

KW - Ecosystems Research

KW - Biology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85076324910&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10745-019-00116-5

DO - 10.1007/s10745-019-00116-5

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 47

SP - 855

EP - 864

JO - Human Ecology

JF - Human Ecology

SN - 0300-7839

IS - 6

ER -