“The periphery is a place where opposites clash or converge, where creativity and danger are at their most alive” – Kevin MacNeil (2011: xxi)

Building Community Resilience Conference invites explorations of how various ‘dark horses’ in the broad North Atlantic – including minorities, small towns, peripheries, aboriginal communities, those with little money, status, voice or political leverage – can rise to the occasion and chart liveable futures.

Building Community Resilience Conference will examine opportunities for sustainable living that are more likely to emerge from small and peripheral communities – rural, coastal or island – that would otherwise struggle in a McWorld driven by scale economics.

Building Community Resilience Conference will serve as a platform for the critical and inter-disciplinary discussion of experiences where those living ‘on the edge’, however defined, show unexpected ingenuity and mettle; and respond cleverly to dire economic straits or public policy negligence. Including:

• Politically, by developing suitable governance practices; flexing jurisdictional powers; and engaging in multi-level political and (para)-diplomatic relations;
• Economically, by facilitating small-scale entrepreneurship; promoting investment; creating skill-rich jobs; encouraging inward and circular migration; and developing new forms of human-scaled, place-based, no-growth economies, sensitive to environmental needs; and
• Culturally, by nourishing strong communities that celebrate traditions and encourage artistic expression; sustaining suitable environmental practices; and welcoming newcomers in their rooted yet routed ways of life.

Conference organizers welcome submissions from community organizations, community leaders, nonprofit organizations, government, students, researchers, and businesses to share information on the topic of building resilient communities or regions. Each presentations will be allocated 15 minutes for sharing information and 5 minutes for questions. Conference organizers also welcome suggestions for panels discussions on topics related to building resilient communities and regions.