Concept of Resilience Become so Popular

Introduction

It is absolutely undoubtable that the climate is changing and the steadily growing human pressure on the Earth is considered the main driver of environmental change. In this new geological epoch defined by some scientists as the Anthropocene (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000), questions about future sustainability have therefore became crucial. Several scientists have studied the anthropogenic interactions with the surrounding environment as Rockstöm et al. (2009) and, more recently Steffen et al. (2015), developed and analysed quantitative limits to abide in order not to compromise a sustainable future for human beings.

In this changing environment, climate change is considered to manifest at two different temporal scales, in slow and long-term changes in climatic conditions, rainfall patterns and increased temperatures, and in rapid and short-term changes with increased likelihood of extreme weather events and ecosystems’ degradation (Tompkins and Adger, 2004). Moreover, climate change is not foreseen to affect equally the whole planet. The tropics areas, where most of the developing countries are located, are foreseen to be the most exposed to climate change externalities (IPCC, 2014) with adverse effects going to exacerbate the vulnerabilities already in place (Godfray et al., 2010).

The most the countries are dependent on natural resources and ecosystem services, considered the “benefits that people obtain from ecosystems” (MEA, 2005, p.40), the most are considered vulnerable (Tompkins and Adger, 2004). Therefore, in order for the populations of these countries to manage to cope with the climate change externalities, they are required to adapt to climate change, improving their adaptive and transformative capacity and resilience both in terms of human and ecological systems at multiple levels (Tompkins and Adger, 2004).

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The aim of this essay it to critically examine the importance of the resilience concept for development theories and practices and to compare and contrast two different approaches of resilience for poverty reduction in developing countries. Starting from drawing from the history of resilience studies and the definition of resilience in development, the paper analyses the application of resilience building at community level (section 2). Section 3 examines the application of resilience building through forced resettlements in Mozambique. Section 4 analyses a case study in Trinidad and Tobago where resilience is enhanced through co-management of natural resources and section 5 draws the final conclusions.

Resilience in Development

The concept of resilience started getting momentum in the mid 1960s and it is now widespread in different sectors comprising development and climate change adaptation (Béné et al., 2012). Nowadays, three among the most prominent frameworks that incorporate resilience thinking are the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015b), the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction (United Nations, 2015a) and the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change recommendations (IPCC, 2014).

The term resilience was firstly adopted in scientific studies and was considered “to describe the capacity of a material or system to return to equilibrium after a displacement” (Norris et al., 2008, p.127) with the first most prominent author to apply resilience thinking to ecological system being Holling (1973). Since then, as Norris et al. (2008) shows, resilience has been applied at several levels of analysis comparing social and ecological systems, or individual and community levels, with several scholars proposing their definition. Likewise, analysing resilience and development, Arnall (2015) differentiates between ecological science and medical science applications of the resilience studies. While the former considers structure and functions of social-ecological systems to external shocks, the latter focuses on the capacities of individual to curb shocks. (ibid.). Independently from the point of view taken, either ecological and medical sciences consider resilience a dynamic rather than static concept (Brown and Westaway, 2011).

While analysing the relevance of resilience in development, weight need to be given to the concept of scales, considering the temporal and spatial dimensions and cross-scale dynamics (Cash et al., 2006). As Arnall (2015) comments, there has been a progressive shift in resilience studies among different levels on spatial scales, from individual to community to national and the measurability of resilience at the different levels of the scale is fundamental. Likewise, Brown and Westaway (2011) analysing social-ecological systems emphasise the need to analyse the cross-scale dynamic changes of surrounding environments.

Drawing from the definitions proposed by several scholars, Norris et al. (2008) define resilience as “a process linking a set of adaptive capacities to a positive trajectory of functioning and adaptation after a disturbance” (p.130). Therefore, their definition connects with the dynamic properties highlighted above where resilience is seen as a process that enhance adaptive capacities to reach a final adaptation (ibid.). This finds agreement with Arnall (2015) who critiques the conservative definition of resilience to maintain the status quo focussing on the need to apply the resilience concept more dynamically in order to promote adaptation and transformation. Figure 1 shows a framework of resilience proposed by Béné et al. (2012) which emphasizes the systematic steps of the resilience building.

Therefore, building resilience is considered the process that brings to adapted outcomes (Norris et al., 2008) and as a way to change the conditions that generated the stress (Arnall, 2015) in order not to return back to the same stage after the disturbance ends (Tompkins and Adger, 2004) but to get to a new transformed situation (Béné et al., 2012).

In order to understand the concept of resilience, and its relevance with development, it is necessary to unpack it further. As Brown and Westaway (2011) show, resilience is more than an inclusionary set of individual features and, as noted above, a cross-scale analysis need to be adopted. While considering a community, is fundamental to acknowledge the high degree of heterogeneity between the different members in terms of, among other things, gender, affluence, social position and ethnicity (Titz, Cannon and Krüger, 2018). Therefore, different individuals have different capacities, capabilities, levels of agency and power and all of these peculiarities are determining their adaptive capacity and resilience.

Agency in social sciences can be considered the ability of people to individually make their own choices and it is a milestone in the recognition of the power of people to engage with their surrounding environment in order not to be merely passive but become active actors (Brown and Westaway, 2011). Therefore, as Norris et al. (2008) emphasize, the concept of agency is at the foundation of individual and community resilience when the capacities become adaptive capacities, in turn robust, redundant and rapidly accessible. Moreover, the community itself need to build its own resilience as a set of resilient individuals does not mean a resilient community as a whole (Norris et al., 2008).

While analysing the adaptive capacity at the community level, it is important to consider the context specificity of the location and how the adaptive capacity is unevenly distributed (Brown and Westaway, 2011). As Norris et al. (2008) show, worse-off individuals, and worse-off communities among different societies, are considered the most vulnerable to external disturbances and less capable to absorb or cope against shocks. Therefore, social and context-specific disaggregation need to be conducted in the process of determining the resilience of individuals and communities.

From the analysis presented above, it is clear that the broad applicability of the concept, with different units of analysis, contributed to the increased popularity of the term (Norris et al., 2008). Moreover, considering the heterogeneity of disturbances affecting people, the adoption of a resilience approach can support in systematically analyse the event in a multi-scale and across sector perspective (Béné et al., 2012).

Moreover, the aim of the resilience concept is to enhance the coping, adaptive and transformative capacity of individuals and communities in a conceptualisation of resilience as a process rather than an outcome (Béné et al., 2012; Norris et al., 2008). In turn, this works toward an increased degree of agency in the individuals notwithstanding the power relations connected (Béné et al., 2012). However, for this to be the case, a dynamic application of resilience thinking and building need to be adopted in order not to limit it to coping or adaptation, but to embrace a full transformation process (Béné et al., 2012; Arnall, 2015).

Resilience for Poverty Reduction: Resettlement vs Adaptive Management

Having analysed the relationship between resilience and development, the discussion now deepens its focus on the relation between resilience and poverty reduction. As for development, poverty has also suffered of a loose definition and measurements. In its broad sense, the MEA (2005) considers poverty as a lack of wellbeing which, in turn, is related to security; access to basic material for good life; health; social relations; freedom of choice and action. Willis (2011) shows how different measurements for poverty have been deployed in the last decades and the adoption of the Multidimensional Poverty Index in 2010 is seen as a step forward to measure the complexity withstanding poverty.

It also generally recognised that worse-off people are generally more exposed to poverty and are therefore more vulnerable to be caught into poverty traps once external stressors are affecting them (Brown and Westaway, 2011). As Wisner, Gaillard and Kelman (2012) show, vulnerability can be considered a function of political, economic and social structures’ failure to support people coupled with an individual lack of availability and access to different endowments. Therefore, a linear and simple conceptualization of poverty would oversimplify the concept whereas a more nuanced classification is needed.

In the process of discussing the relation between resilience building and poverty reduction, Béné et al. (2012) clearly state that the former is not sufficient to ensure the latter and, therefore, cannot fully replace poverty reduction interventions. Following the same dichotomy that characterised top-down and bottom-up development, in the following sections two contrasting resilience building approaches are going to be analysed. The first is a top-down governmental resettlement programme in Mozambique meanwhile the second approach is a bottom-up co-management of natural resources in Trinidad and Tobago.

Forced Resettlement in Mozambique

Following the research conducted by Arnall (2015) the first resilience approach analysed is the forced resettlement conducted by the government of Mozambique of thousands of farmers from the Lower Zambezi river valley to highland areas. In this scenario, resettlement was seen from the government as a way to improve the resilience of local farmers after the floods of 2007 that affected their houses and agricultural fields moving the farmers from the flood-prone area and, therefore, reducing their future risk exposure (Arnall, 2014).

The resettlement was supplemented by livelihood enhancement activities conducted by different NGOs for the displaced people and a withdrawal of governmental provided social services in the low-land area to discourage people to remain (Arnall, 2015). Although the programme was seen in a way to reduce the vulnerability of affected population, improve their wellbeing and reduce their poverty, considering resilience as a process rather than an outcome, it can be seen how the resettlement practice disrupts people’s local livelihoods and capitals (Arnall, 2015).

As Barnett and O’Neill (2012) highlight, resettlement plans that do not consider people willingness to move and preference over destination and final outcomes, are having high chances to fail. In the case study presented by Arnall (2015) land governance, viability of livelihoods and local power structures are seen as main challenges for the displaced people. The redistribution of land to displaced people done by local authorities and following the local wealth structures can also be seen as a power-over domination of local elites which give rise to the elite capture phenomenon (Arnall et al., 2013).

References

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