Social solidarity, collective identities, and community resilience: two case studies from the rural U.S. and Uruguay

Worldwide, rural communities are facing new environmental and socioeconomic challenges driven by phenomena such as climate change and globalization. Socio-ecological resilience theorists have increasingly called for greater... [ view full abstract ]

Worldwide, rural communities are facing new environmental and socioeconomic challenges driven by phenomena such as climate change and globalization. Socio-ecological resilience theorists have increasingly called for greater attention to the social dynamics that inform whether communities are reorganized and sustained in response to socio-ecological disruptions. A growing number of scholars stress socio-ecological heterogeneity can provide resources that communities can mobilize to adapt and sustain themselves in response to disruptions. Utilizing the sociological literature that emphasizes collective solidarity is centrally important to how communities respond to socio-ecological disruptions, we argue solidarity is an important mediator between socio-ecological heterogeneity and resilience. Drawing on ethnographic data and interviews from two rural communities in the central United States (U.S.) and southwestern Uruguay, we explore how group solidarity enabled community members to more effectively draw on their diverse knowledges and skills to sustain their community. Linked by a strong sense of collective identity centered on rurality, in both communities, different local actors effectively worked together to mobilize resources to adapt to new socio-ecological disruptions. The community analyzed in the U.S. was able to repurpose the uses and meanings of a national wildlife refuge in response to newly instituted federal regulations as well as shifting trans-national Canada goose migration patterns. In the community analyzed in Uruguay, residents effectively mobilized responses to disruptions created by the intensification of agriculture and climate change. Results from both cases show that group solidarity enabled by collective identities can facilitate community adaptations and resilience. These results suggest we can better understand the ways in which social heterogeneity informs resilience by considering how solidarity influences whether and how community members with diverse skillsets and knowledges can successfully work together to rearrange and sustain their communities.