From Community Belonging to Ecological Resilience: The Mediating Role of Social Capital in Traditional Villages of Yunnan, China
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
With the sustainable development of rural communities, ecological resilience has become a key concern. Although earlier studies focused on environmental and institutional factors, the role of social and psychological mechanisms in community-level resilience formation had been underestimated. Specifically, the role of community belongingness among residents in fostering ecological resilience via relational mechanisms remained poorly understood.
Based on socio-ecological resilience theory, this paper derived and empirically evaluated a model that described how the sense of community belonging translated into community ecological resilience through the mediating effect of social capital. The empirical analysis was based on a survey of 605 residents in traditional villages in Yunnan Province, China, and employed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
Findings revealed that a sense of community belonging played an important role in increasing social capital, which, in turn, promoted ecological resilience within the community. Although belonging also directly affected ecological resilience, its indirect impact through social capital was more significant, suggesting that social capital was the primary mechanism by which belonging was translated into collective adaptive capacity.
By explaining this process, the paper contributes to knowledge of the social microfoundations of ecological resilience, showing how psychological attachment (belonging), relational structures (social capital), and collective outcomes (resilience) are systematically related in the traditional village setting. The results also provide practical implications for community-based environmental governance, the conservation of traditional villages, and rural development.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Views and opinions appearing in the Journal it is the responsibility of the author of the article, and does not constitute the view and responsibility of the editorial team.
References
Adler, P. S., & Kwon, S. W. (2002). Social capital: Prospects for a new concept. Academy of Management Review, 27(1), 17-40. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMR.2002.5922314
Ahn, M. Y., & Davis, H. H. (2020). Sense of belonging as an indicator of social capital. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 40(7/8), 627-642. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-12-2019-0258
Aldrich, D. P., & Meyer, M. A. (2015). Social capital and community resilience. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(2), 254-269.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764214550299
Berkes, F., & Ross, H. (2013). Community resilience: Toward an integrated approach. Society & Natural Resources, 26(1), 5-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2012.736605
Chang, H., Zhao, Y., & He, F. (2025). Research on the spatio-temporal evolution and prediction of tourism ecological resilience in the Yellow River Basin. Results in Engineering, 28, 108052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2025.108052
Chen, Y., Liu, H., Lin, S., Wang, Y., Zhang, Q., & Feng, L. (2024). The impact of social capital on community resilience: A comparative study of seven flood-prone communities in Nanjing, China. Land, 13(8), 1145. https://doi.org/10.3390/land13081145
Cramer, K. M., & Pawsey, H. (2023). Happiness and sense of community belonging in the World Values Survey. Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, 4, 100101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cresp.2023.100101
Flood, K., Mahon, M., & McDonagh, J. (2022). Everyday resilience: Rural communities as agents of change in peatland social-ecological systems. Journal of Rural Studies, 96, 316-331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.11.008
Folke, C. (2006). Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems analyses. Global Environmental Change, 16(3), 253-267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.04.002
Fontanella Pisa, P., Romagnoli, F., & Shanko, A. (2025). Framing resilience: The role of cultural heritage in community responses to multi-hazard risks. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 130, 105876. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105876
Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2022). A primer on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). (3rd ed.). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80519-7
Hayes, S., Desha, C., Burke, M., Gibbs, M., & Chester, M. (2019). Leveraging socio-ecological resilience theory to build climate resilience in transport infrastructure. Transport Reviews, 39(5), 677-699. https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2019.1612480
He, Y., Zhou, C., & Ahmed, T. (2021). Vulnerability assessment of rural social-ecological system to climate change: A case study of Yunnan Province, China. International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, 13(2), 162-180. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-08-2020-0094
Hocking, L., Opdyke, A., Siguan, A., & Aldrich, D. P. (2025). Linking social infrastructure and social capital: Barangay halls and basketball courts as cornerstones of community resilience. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 130, 105868. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr. 2025.105868
Leach, T., Le, L., Barton, G., Delaney, N., Larsen, E., Pillay, Y., & Bromdal, A. (2026). Being and belonging – identifying “invisible” children and young people's voices within educational contexts in regional, rural and remote Australian communities: A systematic literature review of empirical studies. Journal of Rural Studies, 121, 103930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud. 2025.103930
Mannarini, T., & Fedi, A. (2009). Multiple senses of community: The experience and meaning of community. Journal of Community Psychology, 37(2), 211-227. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.20289
McMillan, D. W., & Chavis, D. M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 623.
Murphy, D. M. A. (2023). Sobriety, social capital, and village network structures. World Development, 166, 106210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106210
Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital, intellectual capital, and the organizational advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 242-266. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMR.1998.533225
Nery Vale, A.F., Nobre, L.H.N., Vieira, V.A., & Deretti, S. (2026). How connectivity in online social interactions influence the loyalty and WOM toward games? The role of need to belong. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 43(2), 150-163. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-11-2024-7377
Pretty, J., & Ward, H. (2001). Social capital and the environment. World Development, 29(2), 209-227. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(00)00098-X
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Touchstone Books.
Qian, L. S., Chen, J. H., Deng, T., & Sun, H. (2020). Plant diversity in Yunnan: Current status and future directions. Plant Diversity, 42(4), 281-291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pld.2020.07.006
Tan, C. C., & Sitikarn, B. (2018). Coffee-and-tea based and social entrepreneurship-oriented community-based tourism (CBT) in Northern Thailand: Contributing towards a theory. International Multidisciplinary Research Foundation, India.
Tan, C. C., & Sitikarn, B. (2019). Balanced scorecard (BSC) structured business model for tribes-based community-based tourism: cases with Chiang Rai. Journal of MCU Peace Studies, 7(4), 899-922. Retrieved from https://so03.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/journal-peace/article/view/202694
Townley, G., Kloos, B., Green, E. P., & Franco, M. M. (2011). Reconcilable differences? Human diversity, cultural relativity, and sense of community. American Journal of Community Psychology, 47(1-2), 69-85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9379-9
Wang, X., Suk, S., Triana, N., Xue, Y., Ma, X., Liu, F., Wang, L., & Liu, Y. (2025). Spatiotemporal dynamics and multidimensional drivers of tourism development–ecological resilience coupling coordination in Jiangxi Province, China. Environmental and Sustainability Indicators, 28, 100875. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indic.2025.100875
Wardekker, A., Nath, S., & Handayaningsih, T. U. (2023). The interaction between cultural heritage and community resilience in disaster-affected volcanic regions. Environmental Science & Policy, 145, 116-128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2023.04.008
Xu, S., & Dong, L. (2022). Spatial distribution and tourism activation of traditional villages in Yunnan Province. Journal of Resources and Ecology, 13(5), 851-859. https://doi.org/10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2022.05.009
Yunnan Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. (2026, January 14). Policy interpretation of the Measures for the Protection of Traditional Villages in Yunnan Province. Retrieved from https://zfcxjst.yn.gov.cn/zhengcejiedu8656/491589.html
Yunnan Provincial Department of Justice. (2025, January 20). Measures for the protection of traditional villages in Yunnan Province. Retrieved from https://sft.yn.gov.cn/lfgz/394040.jhtml