Rethinking Community Resilience: A Critical Review of Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) in Building Social and Economic Sustainability

Abstract

Community resilience has become a central concern in contemporary development discourse, particularly as conventional needs-based approaches are increasingly criticized for fostering dependency rather than genuine empowerment. This paper presented a critical theoretical review of Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) as an alternative paradigm for strengthening social and economic resilience within communities facing structural vulnerability. Drawing on social capital theory, the capability approach, and critical development theory, this conceptual study examined the philosophical foundations, comparative strengths, and inherent limitations of ABCD as both a framework and a practice of community accompaniment (pendampingan). The analysis suggested that while ABCD offered an important paradigmatic shift, from deficit-based to strength-based intervention, its implementation was frequently constrained by unequal power relations, the risk of elite capture over community assets, and insufficient engagement with macro-structural inequalities that lie beyond the reach of local agency. This paper argued for a more critically reflexive application of ABCD, one that integrates structural analysis without abandoning its core commitment to community agency and locally held assets. The discussion contributed to ongoing theoretical debates on participatory development and offered conceptual refinements intended to guide future empirical and applied research on community-based resilience building.