Assessments of resilience and sustainability are increasingly important for mitigating the effects of climate change, especially in rural areas such as the Southern Great Plains (SGP) in the United States. While ecological and economic research on rural sustainability is necessary, we argue that a social approach is essential to understanding how to promote resilient futures. Social capital facilitates access to, and transference of resources individuals need to achieve individual and collective ends. Over the past three decades, research on social capital has advanced across multiple disciplines to address a variety of social phenomena, issues, and outcomes. Building on previous research in the SGP, we focus on community-level social capital through a qualitative content analysis of 65 key informant interviews across the three counties in Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Colorado. Findings suggest that while in-group social capital is strong, resistance to outsiders and government distrust create significant barriers to promoting more resilient communities. Our study contributes to a prolific body of literature on rural sustainability and disaster mitigation. It also develops important insights into the dynamic, contingent, and interdependent nature of social capital. We conclude with recommendations on how to promote community agency while cultivating collaborative relationships between rural communities and government institutions in the interest of rural resilience.

In August 2022, the Pearl River flooded portions of Jackson, Mississippi and temporarily closed the city’s water treatment plant, leaving most citizens without access to safe drinking and potable water for more than a month. This event punctuated an ongoing water crisis that had lingered for decades in this predominately African American city. We employ a social production of disaster approach to reveal aspects of slow violence perpetrated against disadvantaged peoples that increased their collective vulnerability to flood risks and limited their access to safe water. Using survey data collected one year after the flood, we examine event-related psychosocial stress as measured by the Impact of Event Scale and associated risk factors related to Conservation of Resources Theory. Multivariate analysis indicates that resource losses from the flood, health concerns about water quality, and trust in government were significantly related to elevated levels of psychosocial stress. Although the 2022 Pearl River flood can be treated as a discrete event, a social production of disaster perspective situates the flood in terms of its cascading effects and cumulative impacts on the city’s water infrastructure and citizens who depend on it.