Lost in Translation? Resilience ideas in science, policy and practice
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Lost in Translation? Resilience ideas in science, policy and practice Katrina Brown University of East Anglia
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Lost in Translation? Resilience ideas in science, policy and practice. Katrina Brown University of East Anglia. Key argument. Resilience is a term in common usage, it has specific meanings in different scientific fields - important common features - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Transcript of Lost in Translation? Resilience ideas in science, policy and practice
Lost in Translation?Resilience ideas in science, policy and practice
Katrina BrownUniversity of East Anglia
Key argumentResilience is a term in common usage, it has
specific meanings in different scientific fields - important common features
Resilience ideas are not easily translated from scientific to either social nor policy realm
Resilience slogans are being used to promote ‘business as usual’ and stability - its dynamic sense is lost in translation
Could resilience be used to support more radical responses to environmental change?
Resilience in different disciplinesthe capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize
while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks
The RA website glossary at www.resalliance.org/
the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances
Rutter, 2004
a multi-dimensional construct …the capacity of individuals, families, communities, systems and institutions to respond, withstand and/or judiciously engage with catastrophic events and experiences; actively making meaning without fundamental loss of identity
African Health Services editorial December 2008
A Resilience approachExpect change, manage for change Expect the unexpected – uncertainty and surpriseDifferent types of change; slow and fast variables;
feedbacksInteractions between multiple stressorsThresholds – ecological and socialDistinguish between coping and adapting – and
tranforming?Crises as providing windows of opportunity - for
beneficial and detrimental changeCross scale issues – panarchy, polycentric institutions;
individual, family and community
Interrogating Resilience
Resilience as a normative goalResilience of what, for what?Winners and losersMultiple meanings of Resilience Narratives and contestations
Resilience and climate change adaptation
How is current adaptation affecting Resilience?
- Temporal, spatial, social differences and trade-offs
- Options for transformability
Current Policy
10 policy statements on Resilience1. UNDP Human Development Report 2007/82. World Bank World Development Report 20093. UN Commission on Climate Change and
Development 20094. World Bank Pilot Program on Climate Resilience5. WRI: Roots of Resilience 2008 6. DFID White Paper 2009 7. IPPR: National Security Strategy8. Community and Regional Resilience Initiative:
ResilientUS9. US Indian Ocean Tsumani Warning System
Program10. Christian Aid Building Disaster Resilient
Communities Project
Analysing discourses1. Basic entities whose existence is recognised or
constructed- this ontology of the discourse e.g. ecosystems, humans, or Social Ecological System
2. Assumptions about natural relationships e.g. how humans and ecosystems are linked, what affects Resilience and how it is defined
3. Agents and their motives – who or what are the key actors in shaping Resilience
4. Key metaphors and other rhetorical devices+ Policy prescriptions and normative assertions
Three discoursesOptimist - nurturing resilience, scaling up,
markets and Payments for Ecosystem Services
Pessimist 1 - Disaster Risk Reduction and externally derived risks; strengthening ability to withstand shocks
Pessimist 2 – social vulnerability and social differentiation; poverty alleviation
Lost in Translation…Limited mention of Social Ecological System
WRIThresholds (WRI), feedbacks - absentConnections and networks (IPPR, ‘adaptive
networks’ WRI)Transformative change – WB PPCR Adaptive managementDisaster Risk ReductionMultiple conflicting discourses – WB, WRI
A focus on stability and passive adaptation“increased resilience results in ecosystem
stability, social cohesion and adaptability, economic enterprise’ (WRI, 2008: 6)
to accommodate environmental and social change
the ability to withstand the impact of shocks and crisis’
Business as usual?“In the climate debate, improving resilience against
impacts is of course known as ‘adaptation’ – but too easily this suggests that it is somehow separate from development. It isn’t. Adaptation simply means development under the conditions of a changing climate.”
Douglas Alexander, 6th February 2008
“Adaptation is fundamentally about sound, resilient development” “climate-proofing development” “climate smart cities”
World Bank, Climate Resilient Development in Africa, 2009
Climate Resilient Development Mainstreaming adaptation a core
component of development Knowledge and capacity development
e.g.weather forecasting, disaster preparedness
Mitigation opportunities through access to carbon finance
Scaling up financing Making growth resilient to climate change
Resilient development?Approaches which prioritise resilience and human
security
Economy: minimise social and environmental costs / growth
Environment: dynamic multi-equilibria / stable equilibrium
Institutions: poly-centric governance / managerialism and technocratic approaches
Poverty and well-being: new measures / economic measures
Agriculture: risk minimisation / yield maximisation
The dark side of Resilience?As part of a dominant modernist and
technocratic developmentA colonising scientific model of
environmental management?Resisting ResiliencePower, knowledge, justice and self-
determinationResilience and transformation
Lost in Translation?Resilience ideas in science, policy and practice
Katrina BrownUniversity of East Anglia
