Community resilience and social capital: Hindering vs fostering factors

This paper discusses community resilience and social capital dynamics, drawing from studies conducted in the Tohoku region of Japan after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (2011). The study aims to discover the elements that weaken and strengthen social capital and how they influence the path toward resilient recovery. This is based on the assumption that a community's resilience is a function of its social capital's challenges and opportunities. For this purpose, we investigated the affected people's opinions on disaster recovery and community- based organizations' responses to the GEJET damages. The research comprised quantitative, qualitative, and explanatory methods, and five areas with the most significant damages were selected. One thousand six hundred twenty questionnaires in a collaborative effort by researchers from three universities in Japan were distributed to households living in a temporary housing complex; the total response ratio was %27. Fourteen organizations, including community-based/ neighborhood organizations, voluntary fire brigades, social welfare associations, chamber of commerce, and city and prefectural authorities, were interviewed to find their attempts in post- disaster. Investigations show that livelihood challenges, top-down procedures, information gaps, limited resources, and low power of communities hindered social capital during recovery and caused barriers to community resilience by recovery prolongation and rising expenses. Collaboration opportunities, preparedness promotion, spontaneousness, creativity, and reviving communities fostered social capital and smoothened community resilience. The results indicate the power of bonding and bridging social capital among residents, effectively protecting them. Also, bonding, bridging, and linking social capital in community association attempts are visible.