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The Amplified Resilient Community (ARC) aims to unlock community resilience as a way to navigate around global challenges and toward new solutions for wealth creation and life improvement. ARC is a framework which helps to reweave civic, economic and political life from the bottom up. The vision is for communities to develop capacities to become adaptive and flexible under the constraints and uncertainties of globalization. Thilo Boeck is a senior research fellow based in the Centre for Social Action at De Montfort University. He worked in Youth and Community Development in Peru, Germany and the UK which has influenced his commitment to participative research and training. He worked in several research projects exploring social capital and community cohesion. He was the social researcher on the Amplified Leicester project. Twitter: @tgboeck
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The Amplified Resilient Community
Thilo BoeckSenior Research Fellow
Centre for Social Action
De Montfort Univeristy
Twitter: @tgboeck
Context
Social mobility and the ability to move out of poverty are recognised as increasingly urgent priorities due to the growing gap between the rich and poor
We are facing a range of social, cultural and economic challenges.
Many of them are beyond our own ability to influence and control
Policy context:
Big Society: a reduced role of the state and reduction of the welfare state. Create a climate that empowers local people and communities.
Resilience to tackle the wider consequences of economic, social and spatial inequalities.
People face a new type of social exclusion within what is being called the "digital divide" (Digital Britain 2009)
Personal resilience as well as community resilience will be needed to manage the difficulties associated with financial and social exclusion
But: do we have the freedom to create, change and influence events within our own life, our community and our city?
It is not just the DIY project of yourself
Social Justice
Not only 'equality of opportunities‘ Access to resources Individual and group capabilities
Social justice through participation
Resiliency
“Influencing how people are able to respond to the challenges they may face, how they ‘bounce back' in a way that maintains or even enhances their well-being, thus producing relatively good outcomes despite adversity”
Social Capital Deep Diversity Access to Resources Amplification
Social Networks
Social networks tend to magnify whatever they are seeded with
Social networks are creative and what these networks create does not belong to any one individual. It is shared by all those in the network
Social networks grow and evolve. All sorts of things flow and move within them
Through social networks people can transcend themselves and their own limitations
Dissemination and contagionChristakis and Fowler (2010)
Social Capital
“Social networks, the reciprocities that arise from them, and the value of these for achieving mutual goals” (Baron et al 2001)
Bridging/Bonding/Linking Glue and Resource
Diversity
People prefer to hang with people like themselves and tend to stereotype others
Diversity leads to better outcomes Page (2007)
Deep Diversity Capek and Mead (2006)
“A group that thinks in diverse ways will address a problem from many angles.”
Charles Leadbeater,(2008) The Difference Dividend
Cognitive Difference
Diverse perspectives: ways of representing situations and problems
Diverse Interpretations: ways of categorising Diverse Heuristics: ways of generating
solutions to problems Diverse Predictive Models: ways of inferring
cause and effectPage (2007)
Diverse preferences
Difference in what we value Diverse perspectives coupled with diverse
fundamental preferences might frustrate the process of making choices
Collections of people with diverse preferences often prove better at problem solving
Page (2007)
Diverse Identity
Only produces better outcomes indirectly To produce better outcomes it needs to be
– connected to cognitive diversity – connected to relevant problems
Page (2007)
Resources
access to information and a healthy social life through the relationships
‘relational capital’:depends on an people’s individual and intentional effort and thus is almost a private good that can be used when needed
people are trustfully involved in risky ventures with other peoplesupport, help and solidarity
attention to the fate and action of other members of an entire network
‘system capital’:collective phenomena and represents collective goods and cannot achieved by individual intentional efforts alone.
Esser (2008)
climate of trust in the networkvalidity of norms, values, and morality within a group, organization, or society
Amplified Resilient Communities have four important characteristics, they are:
1. highly social2. highly collective3. highly improvisational4. highly augmented
The Amplified Resilient CommunityPartnership between
De Montfort University (Centre for Social Action, IOCT) and BRC
Developed from the Amplified Leicester project funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts
(NESTA)
All communities have some level of resilience. Residents, community and voluntary groups,
statutory bodies and the private sector are considered part of the community, with a common aim; to improve the community.
Enhancing community resilience will build social capital that will make communities ‘healthier’.
There is un untapped potential within Leicester’s deep diversity.
Unlock the potential in existing organisations, networks and individuals as well as identifying and engaging with new dynamic individuals and forming new networks (i.e. linking social capital)
Unlock the potential in existing organisations, networks and individuals as well as identifying and engaging with new dynamic individuals and forming new networks (i.e. linking social capital)
Resilient communities have
more Social Capital
Resilient communities have
more Social Capital
Communities already have organisations, groups and individuals who have accepted a responsibility (whether voluntary, statutory and private sector) to improve the community
Communities already have organisations, groups and individuals who have accepted a responsibility (whether voluntary, statutory and private sector) to improve the community
network weaversnetwork weavers
Tenants AssocTenants Assoc
Employment servicesEmployment services
ResidentsResidents
Residents AssocResidents Assoc
Community AssocCommunity Assoc
Faith GroupsFaith Groups
Special interest GroupsSpecial interest Groups
FireFire
EducationEducation
HealthHealth
Local AuthorityLocal Authority
PolicePolice
Local BusinessLocal Business
CouncillorsCouncillors
Develop a network of community facilitatorsfrom within existing
organisations
Develop a network of community facilitatorsfrom within existing
organisations
Communities will discover their existing resources and unlock their potential to develop new resources.
Communities will discover their existing resources and unlock their potential to develop new resources.
Vision
Leicester will appreciate its diverse social networks as critical infrastructure for collaboration, sense making, and problem solving
Leicester will be resilient and have access to new resources through developing digital media skills and facilitating community service platforms
Leicester will nurture social capital as a valuable asset which will contribute to initiating and maintaining healthy participation in collaborative and cooperative community efforts
Open collaborative platforms will grow the edges of Leicester’s innovation and knowledge networks tapping into the deep diversity of the city.
