The role of social capital in enhancing community participation for sustainable agricultural tourism

Community development has become an interdisciplinary field that focuses on empowering local people's participation and promoting sustainable rural transformation. In this field, social capital has received increasing attention as a driving force connecting community participation with agritourism initiatives. This study is the extends prior bibliometric mappings at the intersection of social capital, community participation, and sustainable agritourism using advanced bibliometric methods. Bibliometric analysis was conducted on 634 docoments, after 227 remove duplicated from two databases, Web of Science (391) and Scopus (470), for the period 1976 to 2025. The analysis used bibliometrix (R) and VOSviewer software to examine co-occurring keywords, thematic clusters, and conceptual evolution over time. The findings identified three prevailing thematic clusters which included; (1) social trust and empowerment in community-based tourism; (2) sustainability in the development of agritourism; and (3) participatory governance and stakeholder engagement. Emerging themes demonstrate growing concern for environmental justice and indigenous knowledge. The main contribution of this research is to clarify how the core concept of social capital has gradually replaced environmental-centered keywords and become a new academic anchor for future research and policy-making. The study concludes with suggestions for future quantitative research focused on measuring the impact of social capital dimensions on residents’ behavioral intentions to engage in sustainable tourism.