The Role of Informal Leader in Community Development: Lessons from Mangrove Forest Conservation at Village of Pasar Banggi, Central Java, Indonesia

Abstract

This paper explores the pivotal and influential roles of an informal leader in community development at Pasar Banggi village, Rembang, Central Java particularly in relation to social capital, social scenarios of change, organization and local community participatory engagement in the development process. This paper, thus, presents social welfare perspective with qualitative approach by phenomenological method. As this paper was based on case studies, it deploys purposive technique to determine the key informants forwarding to next informants. Participatory observation and in-depth interviews were carried out to obtain information. The results were then analyzed through descriptive-qualitative analysis. The findings showed that the informal leader possessed natural ability in building up social capital, networks and trust in the community which revitalized socio-cultural and environmental values.