An examination of midwestern US cities’ preparedness for climate change and extreme hazards

Disasters continue to have a dramatic impact on lives, livelihoods and environments communities depend on. In response to these losses, the global community has developed various theories, assessment methodologies and policies aimed at reducing global losses. A contemporary outcome of these interventions is to build the disaster resilience. However, despite the disaster resilience-building endeavours espoused by policies, theories and methodologies, very little progress is being made in reducing disaster losses. This paper argues that a possible reason behind the limitations of current resilience-building policies and methodologies could be that most of these policies are based a mechanistic scientific paradigm that places an emphasis on system components that are perceived to build resilience and not the function of systems as a whole. This often leads to resilience-building initiatives that are based on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. This paper argues for the use of a complex adaptive systems approach to building resilience. This approach argues that contextual factors within different social systems will have a nonlinear affect on disaster resilience-building efforts. Therefore, it is crucial to move away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches to more flexible approaches to building resilience. These hypotheses are tested by means of a correlation statistical analysis of agricultural communities in Southern Africa. Results of this analysis indicate that unique resilience profiles are evident in almost all of the communities studied. This indicates that resilience is not the same for everybody, and that resilience-building endeavours should be flexible enough to be adapted for different contexts.     

(Re-)negotiating access: The politics of researching skills and knowledge for ‘sustainable communities’

The last decade has witnessed a surge of interest in ‘sustainable communities’ within the UK. This has stimulated a plethora of research aimed at acquiring a better understanding of what ‘sustainable communities’ might look like and how they can be achieved. However, this has not been accompanied by a reflection and interrogation of the actual processes, challenges and politics of doing ‘sustainable communities’ research. This paper addresses this gap by highlighting the importance of paying attention to the on-going process of negotiating access when carrying out sustainability research at the community level. We draw on a recent study of skills and knowledge for ‘sustainable communities’ in Stroud Gloucestershire, UK, to illustrate the importance of sensitivity to social relationships throughout and beyond the research trajectory within sustainability research. Our experience raises important questions about the politics of research practices when doing sustainability research ‘with’ communities and the challenges associated with participatory approaches as a means to demonstrate research impact. We argue that in developing a fuller understanding of why and how different types of community level initiatives can contribute to the ‘sustainable communities’ agenda, greater consideration needs to be given to how these community practices can be better supported through the process of doing academic research.     

The perceptions of social responsibility for community resilience to flooding: the impact of past experience,age, gender and ethnicity

Community resilience to flooding depends, to a large extent, on the participation of community members to take more responsibility for enhancing their own resilience. The perception of social responsibility (SR) which is argued to be one of the antecedents influencing individual’s willingness to undertake resilient behaviours can significantly contribute to community resilience through individual and collective actions. Understanding of factors influencing the perceptions of SR of individuals within community might help with developing strategies to increase the perceptions of SR. This research explores perceptions of SR in relation to flooding for householders and local businesses and establishes their relationships with experience of flooding and demographic factors of age, gender and ethnicity. The data were obtained via a questionnaire survey of three communities in Birmingham and one community in South East London, UK, three with experience of flooding and one without. A total of 414 responses were received and used in the multiple regression analysis. The analysis identified ‘experience of flooding’, ‘age’ and ‘South Asian’ ethnic group as significant variables, suggesting that older individuals from South Asian ethnic groups with previous experience of flooding are likely to be more socially responsible than others without these attributes.     

Occupational transitions in three coastal villages in Central Java, Indonesia, in the context of sea level rise: a case study

The transition from one system to another as a mechanism of adaptation to an external disturbance is widely discussed in terms of ‘regime shifts’ in resilience research. But occupational transitions by communities due to coastal hazards such as coastal erosion and strong waves have not been studied in depth from a systems perspective. Such a perspective can contribute towards a better understanding of the process and pattern behind transformation among coastal societies. The present case study of coastal occupational communities in Central Java province, Indonesia, includes fishers, brackish pond farmers and labourers. It investigates the historical occupational transitions and the factors that drive them. The study draws on Participatory Rural Appraisal exercises such as historical timeline analysis and participatory discussions along with a socio-economic survey to study the factors and processes that led these communities to transitional pathways. Historical narratives of the community reveal the significance and influence of livelihood capitals such as social, human, financial, physical and natural capital in the transitions. Through the ‘Marble and Cup’ conceptual framework of the systems transitions, the irreversibility of occupational transitions due to the destruction of natural assets is outlined. This depicts a multi-locale and one-dimensional transition to a singular occupational mode (essentially labourers) in the face of a disturbance like sea level rise, necessitating transformation and building of the livelihood capitals across geographical scales.     

Windfalls for whom? The evolving notion of ‘community’ in community benefit provisions from wind farms

This paper investigates the increasing provision of ‘community benefits’ – i.e. financial or material benefits to communities affected by wind energy development – with a focus on on-shore wind projects in Wales. The paper argues that as community benefits are becoming more significant in scale, so pressures are mounting on what have hitherto been largely ad hoc arrangements for their disbursement. The paper finds that previously dominant definitions of communities as places directly affected by and within close proximity to wind farm development, are being challenged by the tendency to define ‘affected’ communities as broader entities characterised by more indirect and widely dispersed claims to benefit entitlement. This redefinition of the recipient community is causing conflict, much of it focused on debates about how community benefits should be governed. Evidence suggests that any re-scaling of relations around community benefits – from local compensation towards wider development goals – may be more consensually achieved in communities with previous experience in handling these funds, and where growing income streams allow multiple constituencies to be satisfied.     

Creating a diversified community: Community safety activity in Musashino City,Japan

The recent development of the third sector and the government encouragement of it have attracted the attention of many researchers. In particular, geographical research has examined how the third sector has been affected or changed by government policies or guidelines in recent political economic contexts, especially neo-liberalism and also neo-communitarianism. While much research has demonstrated that the relationship between the government and the third sector is becoming closer, and has considered the problematic impact on the sector or the community, recent studies have described a much more complicated relationship and its consequence. In response, this paper attempts to explore alternative effects of government encouragement at the local community level, through utilising empirical data on recent voluntary activity regarding community safety by the Voluntary Organisations for Crime Prevention Patrol (VOCPP) in Musashino City, a suburb of Tokyo in Japan. Before focusing on the case study in Musashino, the paper briefly outlines key geographical literature on the third sector, and also examines recent expectations of Japan’s third sector using Japanese political documents. Finally, the paper argues that the encouragement of government in fact has the potential to work as a ‘catalyst’ leading to a more independent third sector, with a geographically and organisationally less hierarchical structure, and may also assist in developing a more diversified community.     

Role of women as risk communicators to enhance disaster resilience of Bandung,Indonesia

This study addresses the need for women risk communication and highlights the potential role of Women Welfare Associations (WWAs) of Bandung, Indonesia, as risk communicators. A risk communication framework is modeled for women’s risk communication process. A set of indicators in social, institutional, and economic resilience activities (SIERAs), with a scope of 45 activities covering three different disaster periods, were developed to characterize the delivery process of risk information by women in WWAs through their activities at sub-district and ward levels. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey method using the risk communication SIERA approach. Women’s leaders at wards were surveyed concerning their perceptions on these 45 scopes of SIERA, ongoing activities, and their risk information source and dissemination process. Correlation analysis was applied to determine the relationship between the variables such as periods of disaster, types of activities (social, institutional, economic), and attributing factors (location, population, and education institution) in finding variations in risk communication activity that functions for women and communities. Five risk communication processes of WWAs are identified and implemented that work for women in Bandung. When their perceptions and ongoing activities are compared, activities such as dissemination of disaster risk information, conveying early warnings to their peers, and involvement of the local government have been confirmed to match the risk communication plans and implementation of WWAs. These indicate that WWAs’ activities in Bandung implement a certain degree of risk communication that is embedded in their activities. The results confirm that women through their social networks can become active agents of change and thus act beyond their usual domestic roles and responsibilities in order to contribute to the overall enhancement of community resilience.

     

Resilience and reworking practices: Becoming the first-generation of industrial workers in Can Tho,Vietnam

For more than a decade, labor geography has stressed the importance of ‘giving primacy’ to workers in the analysis of global economic restructuring. However, the majority of contributions have focused on organized workers, leaving the issue of individual labor agency much in the dark. The aim of this article is to shed light on the agency of individual workers involved in rapid industrialization processes. In this endeavor we draw inspiration from recent contributions that have integrated Cindi Katz’s threefold categorization of agency as reworking, resilience and resistance. In combination with this categorization, we apply a distinction between workers’ intentions to enter the industrial labor market and the consequences of doing so (i.e. the outcomes of their engagement). The discrepancy between intentions and outcomes is indicative of labor agency and points to the structural constraints that condition the labor market. The empirical part of the article draws on interviews with local and migrant first-generation workers in two settlements located next to an industrial zone in Can Tho Province in the Mekong River Delta Region of Vietnam. It is suggested that the alternating practices of reworking and resilience can be conceptualized as transformative trajectories - workers’ situated knowledge and practices evolve and change over time and is conditioned by the specific labor market contexts through which the individual moves.     

Spatial and temporal evolution of community resilience to natural hazards in the coastal areas of China

With the accelerating progress of industrialization, urbanization and population growth in recent decades, community resilience, the ability of communities to function effectively and recover successfully in the aftermath of disasters and shocks, has received great attentions. A number of studies had been conducted focusing on community resilience. This article applied community resilience framework to the coastal areas of China, which are the most densely populated and economically developed areas in China with the most frequent marine disasters. City-level social and economic data were used to construct a community resilience index (CRI). Using factor analysis and the global principal component analysis method, 55 city-level indexes were reduced into 15 factors that explain 73.99% of the variance. Getis–Ord G* Statistics were used to depict the high-value clusters and low-value clusters of the CRI. Clearly identified spatial and temporal variations of the CRI showed that both the overall level and regional differences of the CRI increased from 2003 to 2013; the overall spatial agglomeration characteristic of community resilience was not significant. Our findings also highlighted the key elements to improving community resilience: a robust and developed economic system; excellent education programs and training to improve consciousness on disaster prevention and mitigation; adequate investment on critical infrastructure, especially transportation and communication; proper environmental policies to protect ecosystems and water rouses; and extra attention and disaster risk budgets for vulnerable populations.     

We are not all the same!: Comparative climate change vulnerabilities among fishers in Old Harbour Bay,Jamaica

There is a general consensus that Small Island Developing States are among the most vulnerable to experience climate injustices. Vulnerability studies of climate change effects on communities have often focused on differences between communities given these climate injustices. However, there is a need to also focus on vulnerability within communities, referred to here as comparative vulnerabilities. Climate justice therefore becomes even more important with more focused attention given to the nuances within groups that fall within the vulnerable category. This article examines comparative vulnerabilities for the fishing community in Jamaica. A survey of 241 fishers from Old Harbour Bay, the largest fishing village in Jamaica, was conducted to examine the level of vulnerability of different fishers to climate change. A vulnerability index was constructed for the community and then comparative vulnerabilities were determined based on socio-demographic characteristics. Overall for the sample 46.9% of respondents would be considered as experiencing a comparatively high level of vulnerability to climate change. Climate change vulnerability was influenced by a number of socio-demographic variables with unique profiles emerging for groups that can be ranked as low, moderate, and high vulnerability. The paper therefore argues that within vulnerable populations there are comparative vulnerabilities based on economic factors and social capital, which must be taken into consideration for adaptation strategies to be implemented. Given these comparative vulnerabilities a more targeted approach to coping and adaptation strategies can then be taken. This will assist in building resilience of these communities that must now adjust to a new normal with climate change effects currently occurring.     

The evolution of the electronics industry in Johor (Malaysia): Strategic coupling,adaptiveness, adaptation,and the role of agency

Bringing together concepts from the global production networks and evolutionary economic geography literature, this article empirically examines the trajectory of the electrical and electronics industry in Johor (Malaysia). Based on trends in firm entries and exit as well as interviews with companies, we find limited robustness in the industry’s trajectory. While there is evidence of the role of ‘structure’ in this outcome, we argue that human agency – particularly the actions of subnational policy-makers – is key. This is manifest in a preference for fostering regional ‘adaptiveness’ through the often uncritical promotion of a diversity of economic sectors. This compromises the meaningful pursuit of regional ‘adaptation’ in the form of new and more complex branches emerging from existing industries. This arrested development, in turn, hinders an effective strategic coupling between the regional economy and multinational corporations, thus undermining regional resilience.     

‘Making space’ in Cairo: Expatriate movements and spatial practices

This paper examines what it means to be an ‘expatriate’ in Cairo through the lens of movement and space-making. Inquiring into a set of migrant (im)mobilities, spatial practices, relations, and imaginations, it argues that as a ‘spatialised’ identity category ‘expatriate’ narrates and enacts migratory privileges linked to wider hierarchies of social difference. It contributes to a growing literature examining the social and political dimensions of ‘expatriate’ migration and further engages scholarship thinking space and movement in relational and socio-historical terms. Rather than denoting an easily distinguishable group of migrants, ‘expatriate’ emerged as a contingent and ambiguous category of practice. As such, ‘expatriate’ stands in a productive relationship with privileged movement and socio-spatial processes. Like other migrants, respondents skillfully navigated the global differences in wealth, power and status they were presented with. Yet, unlike many other migrants, they did so from a privileged position within the global power-geometries of international migration. Migrants’ personal geographies were further shaped by how bodies were racialised and gendered in entangled, intersecting and sometimes counter-intuitive ways. This diversity and complexity of ‘expatriate’ geographies highlights the necessity of intersectional and situated analyses of privilege.     

The six capacities of community resilience: evidence from three small Texas communities impacted by Hurricane Harvey

This article builds upon disaster scholarship that suggests community resilience is driven by six capacities: social, economic, physical, human, institutional, and environmental. Together, these capacities constitute a conceptual framework that can be used to investigate and assess community resilience. While recent scholarship has provided insights into how resilience operates in large communities, there remain questions about whether this conceptual framework is appropriate for the study of resilience in small communities. To narrow this knowledge gap, we conducted interviews with twenty-six subjects from three small Texas communities affected by Hurricane Harvey: City of Dickinson; City of Port Aransas; and Town of Refugio. Analysis of the interview data confirms that the six capacities of resilience provide an appropriate framework for the investigation of resilience in small communities. Given the complex and dynamic nature of community resilience, the findings also suggest that it is unlikely policymakers will be able to develop a unified policy solution for hazard events that is appropriate for all communities. Rather, policymakers need to consider community-based resilience solutions, driven by local strengths and weaknesses, that facilitate the reduction of risks associated with hazard events.

     

Changing power relations in the WTO – Why the India–U.S. trade agreement should make us worry more,rather than less,about global trade governance

This review offers a critical reading of the November 2014 India–U.S. trade deal that unblocked an impasse in the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha round and considers what it means for the way we govern global trade. It argues that the agreement, rather than being a ‘victory’ for the developing world or a cause for celebration, may simply reinforce an unfair and problematic system of distributing trade opportunities among WTO members. It may also obscure further the need for a fundamental overhaul of the way global trade is governed. In so doing, the review speaks to broader debates about what happens when ‘rising’ powers replace established states in global institutions in the absence of wider processes of reform; and it adds to growing concerns about the increasing precariousness of least developed countries (LDCs) in international economic regimes.     

Struggles over family land? Tree crops,land and labour in Ghana’s Brong-Ahafo region

Agricultural land use in much of Brong-Ahafo region, Ghana has been shifting from the production of food crops towards increased cashew nut cultivation in recent years. This article explores everyday, less visible, gendered and generational struggles over family farms in West Africa, based on qualitative, participatory research in a rural community that is becoming increasingly integrated into the global capitalist system. As a tree crop, cashew was regarded as an individual man’s property to be passed on to his wife and children rather than to extended family members, which differed from the communal land tenure arrangements governing food crop cultivation. The tendency for land, cash crops and income to be controlled by men, despite women’s and young people’s significant labour contributions to family farms, and for women to rely on food crop production for their main source of income and for household food security, means that women and girls are more likely to lose out when cashew plantations are expanded to the detriment of land for food crops. Intergenerational tensions emerged when young people felt that their parents and elders were neglecting their views and concerns. The research provides important insights into gendered and generational power relations regarding land access, property rights and intra-household decision-making processes. Greater dialogue between genders and generations may help to tackle unequal power relations and lead to shared decision-making processes that build the resilience of rural communities.     

Older people’s psychosocial needs in a post-disaster rural community of China: an exploratory study

Older people are arguably one of the most vulnerable groups during a disaster. Existing studies either in China or in other countries predominantly focus on the more Western, pathology-based mental health approach in addressing the impact of disasters on older victims and their needs. However, the concept of ‘psychosocial’ recognises that problems caused by emergencies can simultaneously be of a social nature and a psychological one. This concept emerged from a growing critique on individual oriented mental health approach in disaster contexts. The present study was conducted to explore older people’s needs from a psychosocial perspective. The research site was a Chinese rural community located in the epicentre of ‘5.12’ Wenchuan earthquake (Ms = 8.0) occurred in 2008. The authors conducted content analyses on the qualitative in-depth interviews with 10 (5 males and 5 females) out of 30 older persons from this community. The findings revealed three major psychosocial problems: (1) constant fear of recurring debris flows; (2) sense of helplessness; and (3) disruption to previous social network. Indubitably, the participants reported family members and neighbours as their major sources of social support in emergency situations. This exploratory study argues that older people being exposed to disasters will not only develop psychological problems but also suffer disruption to their social support network and puts forward that empowering family and strengthening community cohesion are important initiatives for helping professionals to promote older people’s psychosocial well-being and enhance their resilience to natural disasters.     

Land-use planning for natural hazards in New Zealand: the setting,barriers, ‘burning issues’ and priority actions

Land-use planners have a critical role to play in building vibrant, sustainable and hazard resilient communities in New Zealand. The policy and legal setting for natural hazards planning provides a solid foundation for good practice. But there are many examples of ‘bad practice’ that result in unnecessary risks and, in some cases, exposure to repeat events and potentially devastating impacts. Much, therefore, remains to be done to improve hazards planning policy and practice in New Zealand. This article explores the questions: What role does land-use planning play in managing hazard risks in New Zealand; and what needs to be done to reduce hazard risks and build community resilience? The article starts by describing the milieu within which natural hazards planning takes place. It goes onto outline the stakeholders and institutional and legal setting for natural hazards planning in New Zealand, including barriers to realising the potential of natural hazards planning. This synthesis reveals a number of ‘burning issues’, including the need to: (a) Improve understanding about the nature of hazards; (b) Prioritise risk avoidance (reduction) measures; (c) Provide national guidance for communities exposed to repeat events and address the relocation issue and (d) Mainstream climate change adaptation. Each ‘burning issue’ is discussed, and priority actions are recommended to realise the potential of land-use planning to reduce natural hazard risks and build community resilience in New Zealand. Ultimately, the challenge is to develop a cooperative hazards governance approach that is founded on coordinated policies, laws and institutions, cooperative professional practice and collaborative communities.     

Contested carbon: Carbon forestry as a speculatively virtual,falteringly material and disputed territorial assemblage

Assemblage approaches are increasingly being used to understand new socio-natural formations arising in relation to the multiple crises of capitalism, climate change and environmental degradation. The valuation of nature is key to these new formations, which the creation of new ‘valued entities’, through calculative practices, that can be accounted for, costed and circulated in monetised and financialised forms in order to ostensibly ‘fix’ certain environmental outcomes in relation to contemporary global crisis. This paper uses an assemblage approach in relation to the global’ transnational project of carbon forestry offsetting and REDD+ in a particular place, Uganda, arguing that it has utility in this respect. While Uganda has been named by Lang and Byakola (2005) as a ‘funny place to store carbon’ due to its contested land politics and history of violence its weak governance context paradoxically re-enforces the imperative for intervention. The paper argues that carbon forestry assemblages are inherently ephemeral and fundamentally contested in three ways: exhibiting a speculative virtuality, faltering materiality and disputed territoriality. Such analysis has the ability to go beyond technical and managerial, or solely pollical economic critiques of carbon forestry, to point at openings for alternatives.     

Dispossessing irrigators: Water grabbing,supply-side growth and farmer resistance in India

This paper examines, first, the conditions under which irrigating farmers are being alienated from their water through a state-led process of dispossession, and then, second, details the dialectical process of farmers’ resistance to these efforts. The paper advances recent scholarship on water grabbing and ‘accumulation by dispossession’ by drawing on a case from northwestern India to explore the connections between non-agrarian economic growth, irrigated agriculture and farmer livelihoods. Specifically, it examines an urban water infrastructure development project that aims to provide water to Jaipur, the Indian state of Rajasthan’s capital city, through the appropriation of an existing rural dam/reservoir complex built for irrigation and redirecting it to domestic, commercial and industrial uses. Drawing on an examination of policy documents and interviews with farmers and state planners, this paper argues that these transfers must be understood as a supply-side solution to support economic growth, where the lack of stable water supplies is a barrier to capital accumulation. The paper contributes to critical scholarship by showing that the processes underpinning water’s reallocation are specific acts of ongoing ‘dispossession’ through extra-economic means under advanced neoliberal capitalism, which alienates water away from peasant producers towards new centers of capital accumulation, dialectically creating peasant resistance to these efforts.     

Communities,abandonment and ‘recognition’: The case of post-state funding community bodies

Communities have increasingly been internalised as subjects with responsibilities in the delivery of urban policy and involvement in broader urban governance. A prominent example is the English New Deal for Communities (NDC) programme that ran between 2001 and 2012. Towards the end of government funding, NDCs were required to develop succession strategies that would leave a ‘legacy’ for their communities. This involved the development of social enterprise bodies that would continue to support community involvement and regeneration efforts through ownership of capital assets, acquisition of public service contracts, and partnership working with mainstream service providers. This paper examines the influence of communities on post-NDC bodies, and the relationship between these organisations and local government, which was a critical agent in the management of the previous NDC bodies. The ‘recognition’ perspective of Honneth (1995), which is concerned with the self-actualisation of actors through inter-subjective relations based on forms of recognition (e.g. respect), is deployed in the analysis of post-NDC bodies. The paper concludes that long term community representatives’ have incorporated market values as a means in which to acquire ‘respect’ from social enterprise professionals, and that there is a lack of recognition by state agents of the role of post-NDC bodies in contemporary urban governance.