Towards a dialectical understanding of rural resilience and rural sustainability: bibliometric analysis and evidence from existing literature and China

Rapid global urbanization leads to remarkable rural shrinkage worldwide. In recent years, the concept of rural resilience has received wide scholarly attention, especially in the context of increasing uncertainties of climate change, economic recession, infectious diseases, and geopolitical clashes. Although there exists well-established knowledge on rural sustainability and rural resilience, the intricate relationship between the two and its impact on rural development remains underexamined. This research adopts an explanatory sequential approach to capture the dialect relationship between the two concepts by performing a bibliometric analysis of literature, constructing a conceptual framework based on the four quadrants theorem, and conducting a case study of rural tourism in China. The research finds that the distinction between active development strategy (endogenous) and passive adaptive process (exogenous) lies at the heart of the two concepts’ departure. The nuances between the two concepts foreground latent sub-rational development models, such as resilient but unsustainable and sustainable but unresilient, which have theoretical implications for applying both concepts in policy formulation. The research concludes with suggestions on how to practically achieve rational rural development with balanced considerations of the two themes.