Framing community resilience through mobility and gender

The study of community resilience observed in times of
crisis has conventionally focused on the impact of external
forces on sedentary and homogeneous communities
embedded in specific ecological systems. Drawing
on a qualitative case study of a rural community
in northern Ghana, this paper reports that, even
in a community of mostly small farmers, diversifying
livelihoods is apparently a main coping strategy. This
paper focuses on two, often overlooked, dimensions
that underpin this livelihood diversification: mobility
and gender. Mobility, the first dimension, indicates
the work of livelihoods that develop outside the community
such as the so-called “settler farming,” a variety
of trading activities, and outmigration to cities.
Gender, the second dimension, indicates cropping and
commercial activities carried out differently by men
and women. Both mobility and gender characterize
diverse livelihood strategies, which evolve by enriching
social relationships and extending networks. This paper
argues that shedding light on social relationships
and networks helps us to reframe the concept of community
resilience from the community-based capacity
of self-organization to the capacity of a flexible social
system for being able to mobilize a wide variety of resources.
Future research agendas must advance this
understanding of resource mobilization in relation to
ecological resilience and must clarify its technological
and policy implications.