Involving Local Communities in Flood Risk Management – Urban and Rural Case Studies
This paper will discuss how changes in policy in the United Kingdom (UK) put an increasing emphasis on the involvement of local communities in the flood risk management process. Yet little is known about local communities and how they operate in our modern, mobile society. In fact many claim that local communities are being destroyed by increasing mobility and globalization. Is there a local community we can engage in the flood risk management process? If so, how can this be done? This research starts to address these questions by exploring both the social, collective responses to flooding and in turn the effect that flooding has on local social relations. This has been done through interviews with both residents and flood professionals in urban and rural locations in Yorkshire. While there were differences between the rural and urban areas, similar underlying processes were identified. There was not a single, straightforward ‘local community’ to be engaged. Rather there was a complex mix of overlapping networks and interests, where conflict as well as cooperation is possible. A number of key underlying factors were identified. To involve ‘local communities’ will require an evaluation of these in each location, whether urban or rural.
Community Studies: Fifty Years of Theorization
This paper reviews the ways in which sociologists in the second half of the twentieth century attempted to make sense of the major trends unfolding in their societies. It focuses in particular on the way in which sociologists have responded to the legacy of the founding figures in terms of their identification of trends such as rationalization, bureaucratization, and proletarianization. The proliferation of other trends captured by words ending with the suffix -ization (for example globalization, McDonaldization, and postmodernization) is noted, and the argument is developed that this style of theorising is valuable but problematic. It is valuable because it encourages sociologists to think comparatively, given that the trends identified necessarily have reference points in the past and that their uneven progress in different societies (or other social units) can be compared. It is problematic because there is no agreement on what constitutes evidence that these processes are unfolding, nor on the need for such evidence. A further problem relates to the issue of how these processes are considered to relate to each other. Research undertaken in the field of community in Britain and beyond over the period 1950-2000 is drawn upon to illustrate these points and to support the argument that concepts drawn from theorization at a general level are essential tools in the analysis of contemporary trends. It is also used to support the related argument that such theorization needs to be grounded in empirical evidence if it is to go beyond mere speculation.
The Historical Reconstruction of Rural Localities: A New Zealand Case Study
The field of community studies is one that has undergone much change and redefinition in recent years. In the 1950s it was subjected to criticism on both methodological and theoretical grounds (see Reiss, 1954). Methodologically, its essentially qualitative approach was considered to lack the rigour of more quantitative counterparts, whilst theoretically its static, structural-functional theoretical underpinnings were held to lack the relevance of more dynamic theoretical frameworks. As a result, its holistic approach fell out of favour as sociologists became more specialised in their research foci. Another factor to be considered here was the disillusionment with the field that followed in the wake of a long but largely unproductive debate on the meaning of community (see Hillery, 1955 and 1959, Parsons, 1959, Sutton and Kolaja, 1960, Martindale, 1964, Simpson, 1965). These criticisms were then added to through the 1960s and into the early 1970s. In this period, community studies were seen as being ahistorical, non-cumulative, overly descriptive, idiosyncratic and non-comparative (see Glass, 1966, Stacey, 1969, and Bell and Newby, 1971).