Empowerment of Urban Peripheral Villages (A Case Study: Peripheral Villages in Neka City, Iran)

Abstract

This study aims to develop a comprehensive model of village empowerment in the periphery of the city of Neka by identifying different dimensions of empowerment and their interrelationships in order to provide a practical framework for planning and implementing empowerment initiatives. This mixed-methods (quantitative-qualitative) research consisted of two phases. In the qualitative phase, data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 17 local elites. In the quantitative phase, data were collected through a researcher-designed questionnaire from 384 residents of 6 villages in the urban periphery of Neka, selected through stratified random sampling, and analyzed analysed using descriptive and inferential statistical tests. The results showed that the empowerment of villages in the urban periphery is a multidimensional process with five main dimensions. The economic dimension was identified as the strongest empowerment. Among these dimensions, the social dimension had the highest average, while the infrastructural dimension had the lowest. The correlation analysis showed the strongest relationship between the economic and social dimensions. A regression model indicated that the independent variables explained a significant proportion of the variance in the dependent variable. In addition, significant differences in empowerment levels were observed between villages.