Abstract
As social capital evolves, we need to better address how we assess it in terms of community connection and involvement. This research presents a longitudinal study of Goderich, Ontario’s post-tornado community connection and involvement in relation to the Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis (CVA) model’s social, physical, and motivational factors. We first address literature around rural communities, extreme stresses related to capacity and vulnerability, the window of opportunity, and current uses for the CVA model before continuing with a brief synopsis of the study community and our research methods of surveys and interviews. Our results highlight three key findings: (a) there was a reduction in perceptions of connection and satisfaction with rebuild from 2012 to 2016; (b) in 2016, employed individuals experience a stronger sense of connection to community; and (c) five years after the tornado, the more satisfaction with involvement the higher the sense of community connection. Concluding our discussion of these findings, we propose a modification to extend the CVA model’s usefulness to a wider range of situations. We argue a pre-emptive, motivationally focused CVA model can be a useful tool for rural communities in multi-level income locations to address their community’s capacities and vulnerabilities prior to an extreme stress and build their connection and involvement levels.
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Notes
Although the Enhanced Fujita Scale with 28 damage indicators carries a higher degree of reliability, for the purpose of this study we use the original Fujita Scale to remain consistent with both reports of the tornado in 2011 and the original study conducted in 2012.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Amanda Herbert for all of her work on this project as research assistant. We would also like to thank James Mahone and Glen Filson for their guidance and input on the original 2012 project.
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This work was supported by funding from the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph.
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Laycock, K.E., Caldwell, W. Exploring Community Cohesion in Rural Canada Post-Extreme Weather: Planning Ahead for Unknown Stresses. Soc Indic Res 139, 77–97 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1706-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1706-1