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.     

Increasing fiscal resilience to disasters in the Pacific

Pacific Island countries are among the list of countries that face the highest disaster risk globally—in per capita terms. In recent years, governments in the region have been confronted by a rise in damages from extreme catastrophic events, many increasingly linked to climate change. These events pose significant challenges to Pacific governments in terms of maintaining fiscal stability and the operation of their limited and under-diversified economies and shallow financial sectors. Governments in the region generally play a leading role in domestic economies and are responsible for leading disaster prevention, mitigation, and recovery efforts. Accordingly, measures to improve financial sustainability and the public sector’s ability to provide public services in the aftermath of major disasters must be prioritized. This paper examines the literature on fiscal resilience to disasters, the estimated impacts of major events in the Pacific, and analyses the applicability of available financial instruments to facilitate both ex ante and ex post disaster fiscal risk management in the region. The paper also discusses policies that can improve resilience against fiscal risks.

     

Resilience and seismic risk perception at school: a geoethical experiment in Aiello Calabro,southern Italy

The last few years have seen the debate on the geoethics of environmental and climatic protection growing to include resilience as a central idea within this new discipline, which holds many similarities with geography. Resilience analysis often looks at the capacity to re-establish conditions of equilibrium within a system which has been hit by a serious shock, e.g. a natural or man-made disaster. Geoethics works, in tandem with geological analyses and the geography of risk, to inform a population and develop integrated risk management in such a way as to strengthen a community’s resilience. The aim of this work is to study some people’s capacity to overcome what was potentially a disastrous event and, through a process of reconstruction, turn it into an occasion for growth. The experiment, carried out in the primary and middle schools in Aiello Calabro (Calabria, southern Italy), was conducted on the basis of the belief that there is a close relationship between a population’s having a realistic understanding of the risk of such an event, e.g. an earthquake, and high levels of resilience. We also tried to gain an insight into the relationship that may exist between resilience in primary and secondary school children and methods of coping which give an appropriate management of seismic risk. To be more precise, we try to discover whether there is a link between good/appropriate resilience and good/appropriate risk management.     

Resilience and seismic risk perception at school: a geoethical experiment in Aiello Calabro,southern Italy

The last few years have seen the debate on the geoethics of environmental and climatic protection growing to include resilience as a central idea within this new discipline, which holds many similarities with geography. Resilience analysis often looks at the capacity to re-establish conditions of equilibrium within a system which has been hit by a serious shock, e.g. a natural or man-made disaster. Geoethics works, in tandem with geological analyses and the geography of risk, to inform a population and develop integrated risk management in such a way as to strengthen a community’s resilience. The aim of this work is to study some people’s capacity to overcome what was potentially a disastrous event and, through a process of reconstruction, turn it into an occasion for growth. The experiment, carried out in the primary and middle schools in Aiello Calabro (Calabria, southern Italy), was conducted on the basis of the belief that there is a close relationship between a population’s having a realistic understanding of the risk of such an event, e.g. an earthquake, and high levels of resilience. We also tried to gain an insight into the relationship that may exist between resilience in primary and secondary school children and methods of coping which give an appropriate management of seismic risk. To be more precise, we try to discover whether there is a link between good/appropriate resilience and good/appropriate risk management.

     

Ageing,migration and familial support in rural China

Accelerated by economic reforms, a large scale migration of younger workers from rural to urban China has taken place since the 1990s. This has separated many adult children from their ageing parents and imposed significant challenges on traditional patterns of familial support for rural older people. These challenges are augmented by the fact that in rural China the elderly have been deprived a state pension and other welfare provisions available to urban residents.Drawing upon qualitative data from a project on ageing in rural China, this article examines the agency of older people and their families in responding to geographical separation resulting from the migration of the economically active to the cities. Through 32 life history interviews with multiple generations of nine households in one rural village, this article sheds light on the resilience and flexibility of rural households which have experienced migration and highlights the webs of interdependence that feature in the daily strategies of householding. It shows how members of the household across different geographical locations worked together to build and maintain the collective welfare of the family. In particular, this article argues that it would be over simplistic to suggest that migration is always detrimental to the older generation who stay behind. Contrary to assumptions in some migration studies and ageing literature in China, it shows that it is the breakdown of the webs of interdependence and reciprocity rather than the event of migration that will have inevitable negative effects upon old age care for the seniors in the household. Further, while highlighting the significance of householding, this article reveals the internal dynamics within a household. It identifies the role of gender in daily householding and suggests that the caring, supportive and kin-keeping roles performed mainly by women played a critical role in ensuring social and physical reproduction across generations. The article finds that while daughters took over some responsibilities which were traditionally expected from their brothers and sisters-in-law in old age support, the persistence of gendered practices and traditions in rural villages allowed sons more symbolic status and material benefits.     

Climate change and the resilient society: utopia or realistic option for German regions?

For the last five years, climate change has been increasingly perceived as a challenge for regional development. Compared to other nations, Germany is relatively ‘safe’, but the German regions are prone to different impacts of climate change; some of them might be positive but most will be negative in the long run. Strategic concepts are therefore needed to reduce the negative impacts and use the potential positive effects. Due to enforced research funding, several German regions are currently developing adaptation strategies within transdisciplinary research projects. Based on a comparative case study analysis of three of these projects, this paper looks for the benefits of resilience thinking in the context of climate change adaptation. The analysis shows that the case study regions try to increase their resilience to climate change by strengthening the properties of (1) resistance, (2) recovery and (3) creativity. But the discussion also reveals that only parts, certain sectors or subjects, of the region can increase their distinct resilience. Regional stakeholder networks as established within the case study regions can make a significant contribution to linking different sectors and levels of action. Therefore, this approach seems to be applicable for integrating the need for adaptation within the whole region. It is believed that the regionalized communication of potential climate change impacts raises awareness for climate change adaptation, helps to develop appropriate adaptation measures and encourages action. Hence, different approaches can indeed lead to more resilient structures. But the resilient society at regional level remains utopia.     

Climate change and the resilient society: utopia or realistic option for German regions?

For the last five years, climate change has been increasingly perceived as a challenge for regional development. Compared to other nations, Germany is relatively ‘safe’, but the German regions are prone to different impacts of climate change; some of them might be positive but most will be negative in the long run. Strategic concepts are therefore needed to reduce the negative impacts and use the potential positive effects. Due to enforced research funding, several German regions are currently developing adaptation strategies within transdisciplinary research projects. Based on a comparative case study analysis of three of these projects, this paper looks for the benefits of resilience thinking in the context of climate change adaptation. The analysis shows that the case study regions try to increase their resilience to climate change by strengthening the properties of (1) resistance, (2) recovery and (3) creativity. But the discussion also reveals that only parts, certain sectors or subjects, of the region can increase their distinct resilience. Regional stakeholder networks as established within the case study regions can make a significant contribution to linking different sectors and levels of action. Therefore, this approach seems to be applicable for integrating the need for adaptation within the whole region. It is believed that the regionalized communication of potential climate change impacts raises awareness for climate change adaptation, helps to develop appropriate adaptation measures and encourages action. Hence, different approaches can indeed lead to more resilient structures. But the resilient society at regional level remains utopia.     

Building resilience to natural hazards in Indonesia: progress and challenges in implementing the Hyogo Framework for Action

Over the last 50?years, the cost of natural disasters has increased globally and in Indonesia (EM-DAT 2012). We therefore need more systematic efforts in trying to reduce disaster risks. In 2005, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction created the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005?C2015: ??Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities??, in order to enable a more systematic planning, implementation and evaluation of disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities. In this paper, we examine Indonesia??s success in improving DRR by reviewing the country??s progress in implementing the HFA Priorities for Actions. This includes an analysis of the drivers, challenges and emerging issues in building resilience to natural hazards. The study is undertaken through literature reviews and interviews with 26 representatives of key organisations in DRR and climate change adaptation (CCA) in Indonesia. Our findings indicate that the building disaster resilience in Indonesia has been, to a large extent, driven by the existence of the necessary regulatory policies and frameworks and the participation of various non-government stakeholders. Impediments to process include a lack of capacity and capability for DRR at the local government level, a lack of systematic learning and a lack of commitment from government to mainstream DRR into broader development agendas. Emerging pressing issues that are likely to challenge future resilience building activities include the integration of DRR and CCA and urban risk governance.     

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.     

Community readiness for a new tsunami warning system: quasi-experimental and benchmarking evaluation of a school education component

Youth preparedness for disasters is a growing area of research. However, studies to date have relied on cross-sectional, correlational research designs. The current study replicated aspects of the one other study to date that has used a quasi-experimental strategy to evaluate youth preparedness for disasters. This study evaluated whether children were more knowledgeable and prepared for hazards generally but also in more specific relation to the rollout of a new tsunami warning system. Using a pretest–posttest with benchmarking design, the study found that following a brief school education program, supplementing a larger community-wide effort, children reported significant gains in preparedness indicators including increased knowledge as well as increases in physical and psychosocial preparedness. Within group effect sizes compared favorably with those from the previous experimental study in this area used to benchmark current intervention-produced findings and produced hints that combining school education programs with larger community preparedness efforts can enhance preparedness. Given that this is only one of two experimentally-based studies in an area of research largely dominated by cross-sectional designs, future research should consider the use of experimental designs, including those that are pragmatic and fit with needs of the school. The current approach has limitations that need to be considered. However, it also has some real advantages, including being used more extensively in fieldwork studies that evaluate various types of interventions. Through increased use of experimental design strategies, researchers can then also have increased confidence that educational programs are the source of increases in disaster resilience in youth and their families.     

Resilience to natural hazards: a geographic perspective

Resilience is increasingly used as an approach for understanding the dynamics of natural disaster systems. This article presents the origin of resilience and provides an overview of its development to date, which draws on the wide literature on ecological science, social science, social–environmental system and natural hazards. From a geographic perspective, the model of disaster resilience of “Loss–Response” of Location (DRLRL) was created and disaster resilience was defined from three dimensional mode, which focused on the spatial, temporal scale of resilience and attributes of hazard-affected bodies. A geographic approach was put forward to measure the disaster resilience, including two properties of inherent resilience and adaptive resilience and a case study was implemented in order to validate this approach. This perspective would offer greater potential in application of resilience concept, especially in the process of integrated risk management and disaster recovery.     

The diversity of resilience: contributions from a social science perspective

The paper presents contributions to the widespread resilience paradigm from a social science perspective. Certain aspects of social systems, especially their symbolic dimension of meaning, need to be taken into account in the endeavor to research coupled social–ecological systems. Due to the symbolic dimension, disasters are defined as the failure of future expectations, and social resilience is defined as the social system property of avoiding or withstanding disasters. In relation to this, three capacities of social systems (adaptive, coping, and participative) that constitute resilience are presented. The adaptive capacity is the property of a system in which structures are modified to prevent future disasters, whereas the coping capacity is the system’s property of coping with calamitous processes that occurred in the past. The participative capacity is a measure of the system’s ability to change its own structures with regard to interventions by other systems, decreasing the system’s resilience. The concept of resilience provides important epistemological and political insights and can help overcome an orientation tied together with the concept of vulnerability that blocks social capacities for the mitigation of disasters.     

Urban green resilience: Experience from post-industrial cities in Poland

De-industrialisation triggered economic, spatial and environmental changes in cities. Therefore, this study identifies whether there has been a reorientation of spatial development in post-industrial cities towards the creation of green spaces. The aim of the study is to analyse and evaluate the transformation of green spaces in 32 major cities in Poland, including 12 post-industrial cities. Data sources were vector land cover data models from the Urban Atlas for 2006 and 2018, administrative boundaries from the National Boundary Register and building layers from the Topographic Objects Database. The research procedure was carried out using the GIS environment, through spatial analysis, geoprocessing algorithms, and spatial statistics. The results have shown that post-industrial cities do not develop their urban resilience based on the expansion of green spaces and, consequently, do not build green urban resilience. In addition, the research has proven that the greatest loss of green spaces is noticeable in parts of post-industrial cities with medium and high development intensity, where there is an intensification of construction activity. The dominant direction of the transformation of green spaces has been the conversion of agricultural areas into green spaces (87.79%). In contrast, the main direction of loss in green space has been the creation of new industrial units (24.80%) and the expansion of the urban fabric (23.53%). The article is original due to the fact that there is a gap in the literature regarding the study of green spaces in post-industrial cities with regard to the concept of green urban resilience.     

The impact of behavior on the risk of injury and death during an earthquake: a simulation-based study

The use of casualty modeling in the field of disaster management is well established. Nevertheless, it is currently based almost exclusively on damage to the built environment and fails to consider additional factors that may influence the number of casualties in a given event, such as behavioral features of the exposed population. The present study has taken an innovative approach and integrated behavioral traits of residents in a high-risk area in northern Israel, near the Dead Sea Transform, into a well-known casualty estimation simulation. The expected behavioral characteristics of residents during an earthquake, in city sectors with different socioeconomic rankings, were assessed using a designated survey and were applied into the casualty estimation process. In order to test the sensitivity of the behavioral factor, twelve synthetic earthquake scenarios were designed. The results shed light on the relationship between specific behavioral strategies and casualty projections and suggest that loss estimation models that do not take behavioral factors into account may overestimate the projected number of casualties. Households with low socioeconomic status were found to be more vulnerable in terms of risk of injury and death compared with those ranked higher. The present study shows the importance of raising public awareness regarding proper behavior prior to and during the event which can help increase resilience of communities, mitigate risks and losses and ultimately save lives. Further implications of these results and possible ways of improving casualty modeling and community resilience are also discussed.     

Salt Marsh Sustainability: Challenges During an Uncertain Future

Many salt marshes throughout southern New England are exhibiting a trend toward submergence, as reported in this volume and other published literature. This paper provides a brief perspective on sea-level rise and the many other interacting factors that contribute to marsh submergence in this and other regions. Curtailing nutrient loading and removing or altering barriers (e.g., dams, dikes) to the delivery of suspended sediment to marshes are discussed as management or restoration techniques to consider for increasing long-term sustainability of marshes. Adaptation measures are many (e.g., thin-layer sediment application to marsh surface, facilitation of landward marsh migration, shoreline stabilization), but all require study to evaluate their potential for enhancing resilience. Research, monitoring, and dynamic modeling, coupled with appropriate management and adaptation approaches implemented at local and regional scales, will contribute to the challenge of sustaining salt marshes in an uncertain future of sea-level rise, other climate factors, and stressors associated with a developing coastal zone.     

考虑地下水入侵导致土壤强度变化的沿海建筑地基韧性模型

海平面上升导致的地下水入侵沿海地区的建筑地基造成显著风险。提出了一个考虑地下水侵入导致土壤强度退化的沿海建筑地基韧性模型。该模型由地基的性能函数在服役期内的积分得到。考虑条形基础的韧性,其极限承载力由Terzaghi公式描述。韧性模型考虑气候变化背景下地下水位的上升对土壤强度的影响。通过一个算例,展示了所提出的韧性模型的适用性。结果表明,如果不考虑气候变化影响下地下水位的上升,则会得到不保守的结构韧性评估结果。结构全寿命周期内的韧性也取决于所采用的维护措施（即,修复受损的结构性能）。未来的研究中,还应考虑其他因素（如锈蚀）对沿海建筑地基性能退化的联合影响。     

Intractions of mantle and crustal magmas in the southern part of the Ivrea Zone (Italy)

In the southern part of the Ivrea Zone (Italy), the majority of the Mafic Formation is composed of: 1. amphibole-bearing gabbro; 2. a series of rocks ranging from norites to charnockites; 3. leucocratic charnockites. In the proximity of metasedimentary septa within the Mafic Formation, the igneous lithologies are in many places intimately and chaotically intermingled, giving rise to a marble-cake structure. Whole-rock chemistry, and oxygen and strontium isotopic compositions indicate that the mafic and felsic rocks are dominated by mantle and crustal sources respectively. The norite-charnockite suite may be modelled as the mixing product of basic and acid melts. Abundant plastic deformation structures suggest that mafic and hybrid rocks experienced an important tectonic event during or soon after their crystallization. Melting of crustal country rocks continued after the deformation event and produced the undeformed leucocratic charnockites. The study area exemplifies some of the possible effects of the intrusion of a large volume of basic magma into hot crust.     

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.

     

Urban land transformation for pro-poor economies

The transformation of land into a setting for clustering local economies can become an important cornerstone of poverty policy. This transformation has several functional aspects, which in turn have important institutional and political aspects. Underlying both the functional and institutional factors is the role of local government and local democracy. Such a conceptualization puts to center stage several paradoxes: A terrain that seems “slum-like” turns out to be highly productive and employment generating. Complex tenure forms and mixed land use seen as “unplanned” turn out to be pre-requisites for economic development. There are institutional paradoxes that contrast efforts at “transparency” and managerial “best practices”. Here, the messiness of local bureaucracies in municipal government turns out to be critical for poor groups to influence interventions in their favor. Influencing the public process may be more effective in stealth-like ways rather taking a more visible approach. Most fundamentally these issues remind us that the potential of cities to reinforce or reduce poverty moved far beyond projects and programs and the normative frameworks used by planners and administrators. Instead, it is the transformative process of turning land into economic settings that might be at the center stage. This is a stage where poor groups are the central actors who stealth-like draw on complex alliances across ethnic and class lines to shapes cities in their interests.     

Community resilience,globalization, and transitional pathways of decision-making

This article investigates the impacts of globalization processes on community resilience. It argues that theoretical concepts such as transition theory can provide a lens through which resilience pathways at community level can be better understood, and proposes a framework focused on a social resilience approach for understanding community resilience as the conceptual space at the intersection between economic, social and environmental capital. It argues that certain types of communities are losing resilience through increased embeddedness into globalized pathways of decision-making, while other communities may be gaining resilience, although not one system is either totally resilient or totally vulnerable. Striking the right ‘balance’ between communities and their scalar interactions with the global level is key for maximization of community resilience: while too much isolation of a community may be bad in light of over-dependency on local resources, skills and people, ‘over-globalization’, with possible loss of autonomy and identity, may be equally fraught with problems. In particular, relocalized communities have, so far, not shown much tangible success, as almost all members of the relocalization process at community level are simultaneously embedded within the global capitalist system through their dependencies on global economic processes.