Vulnerability of rural livelihoods in North Vanuatu to climate and socioeconomic change

Changes in the environment, society, and the economy can have a significant impact on the livelihoods of many people. In particular, climate change and increasing globalization pose challenges to societies worldwide. On the one hand, such changes can affect the exposure, sensitivity, or adaptive capacity of individuals or entire societies, thus increasing their vulnerability to shocks (e.g., storms or sudden market price collapse) and stressors (e.g., droughts or high cost of education). On the other hand, such changes may themselves impact livelihoods directly by causing the aforementioned shocks and stressors. The example of North Vanuatu in the South Pacific illustrates the extent to which these changes and their consequences are already part of the reality of life for the region’s citizens. For example, local food production and income opportunities are already being affected by the impacts of climate change. In addition, North Vanuatu is transitioning from a subsistence economy to a market economy and is experiencing significant sociocultural change, with traditional values and norms changing or increasingly being replaced. These changes can also affect livelihoods by facilitating or impeding access to livelihood assets. However, the question of how these transformations in the environment, society, and economy lead to vulnerabilities and how this can affect the living conditions of society in general and food security in particular has not yet been fully clarified. Specifically, there are only few studies that use a concrete example (i.e., case studies) to show how local vulnerabilities relate to transregional or even global dynamics. However, this understanding is essential to empowering affected people to recognize changes and their causes and effects and to respond to them with adequate adaptation strategies. This desideratum leads to one of the central research questions of this dissertation: How are local vulnerabilities linked to global changes and their impacts? Answering this question requires an understanding of the causal relationships between cause, such as climate change, and local effect, such as crop failures. Previous studies have shown that local knowledge of affected populations is very useful, if not essential, in capturing the complex dynamics that shape vulnerabilities. Local knowledge enables an understanding of local conditions at a granularity that would otherwise be unattainable. In line with these findings, I place local knowledge and needs at the center of the analysis and address the role of local knowledge as a source of data for vulnerability research from a methodological perspective. I also place local knowledge centrally because this approach—according to the literature—ensures the relevance of the results and the implementability of the derived recommendations in the long term. Despite the importance of local knowledge, very little is known about how exactly local knowledge on vulnerability factors such as climate change, is generated, and, in particular, how local actors construct vulnerability-relevant causal relationships. These considerations lead to another central research question of this dissertation: How do the local people of North Vanuatu perceive change and its impact on their livelihoods, and what might influence this perception and associated knowledge? The dissertation is based on a transdisciplinary (td) research design that combines various qualitative research methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observations, focus group discussions, expert interviews, and workshops. The td approach ensured an integrative study that links scientific findings and local knowledge, and puts local problem perception, problem identification, and problem structuring at the center of the analysis. The results of this dissertation shed light on how study participants in North Vanuatu relate potential vulnerabilities, particularly related to food insecurity, to environmental, social, and economic changes. According to study participants, crop failures and a decline in garden productivity are at least partially attributable to the impacts of climate change. While these disruptions in food production can have significant consequences, they allegedly do not threaten food security, at least for the present. However, the results also show how the attribution of perceived problems to external causes, such as climate change, is supplemented or even replaced by internal causal factors during and because of a participatory reflection process. For example, study participants explain that changes in crop rotation or planting times can also directly lead to lower harvests or increase the vulnerability of gardens to severe climatic conditions such as drought. The results also suggest that these changes in farming practices are based on economic decision-making logic aimed at maximizing income, which has only recently been made possible by economic developments and their implications, such as improved access to the market. However, new market access can also lead to an overall reduction in livelihood vulnerability by enabling the development of additional sources of income and food that complement existing (subsistence-oriented) strategies, thereby leading to a reduction in one-sided dependencies. The results illustrate the multidimensional character of vulnerability. On the one hand, vulnerability factors can emerge and have an impact at the local level; thus they are at least partially within the scope of action of those affected. On the other hand, vulnerability factors can be embedded in broader dynamics and processes that transcend multiple temporal and spatial scales, such as globalization. Therefore, such vulnerability factors can be influenced by those affected only with difficulty or not at all. Furthermore, the research process and results highlight the importance and usefulness of local knowledge to understand the complexities around vulnerabilities. In particular, local knowledge has helped link local problems, such as lower productivity of gardens, to possible causes, such as changes in farming practices. However, results also suggest that prevailing narratives, such as those about the impacts of climate change, can significantly influence the attribution of local problems to possible causes. On the one hand, these narratives are incorporated in local knowledge and thus influence the individual perceptions of local people. On the other hand, hegemonic narratives can generate social desirability. Furthermore, the findings point to the need to understand the complex individual circumstances of people to gain relevant insights for their adaptation to changing conditions when analyzing vulnerabilities. This is because prevailing norms and values can lead to different social groups having different scopes of action and opportunities to acquire the necessary capabilities and strategies to adapt to new conditions. Specifically, this has been illustrated by the social categories of gender and age. The dissertation contributes to empirical knowledge on factors that significantly influence livelihood vulnerability in North Vanuatu. In addition, the dissertation illustrates the challenges associated with incorporating local knowledge into vulnerability analyses and provides insights on how to overcome these challenges. At the same time, it highlights the necessity and usefulness of local knowledge for such analyses to develop relevant strategies that enable people to adapt their livelihoods to changing conditions

Putting people back at the center of livelihood vulnerability analysis

The sustainable livelihoods framework is an analytical tool that allows livelihoods to be conceptualized in a holistic manner. This understanding is an important prerequisite to addressing potential vulnerabilities in people’s livelihoods. However, the framework places relatively little emphasis on people and their agency, although this aspect is central to vulnerability analysis. For example, factors hindering or enabling people’s capabilities to convert potentially available assets into desired livelihood outcomes are not explicitly disclosed in the framework. Instead, they are seen as part of the assets themselves or of site-specific processes and institutions. Accordingly, the framework is of limited use to analyze to what extent a person or group is capable of accessing a particular resource or converting them into a livelihood strategy and determining how power and power relations, as well as locally institutionalized practices and relationships, influence vulnerability. Yet, such analytical why-questions are central to the alignment of interventions that address vulnerability with people’s needs and local realities. Otherwise, there is a risk of remaining at a purely descriptive level. We propose an extension and partial redesign of the framework to better account for such dynamics and to better reflect the complex realities of peoples’ livelihoods. In particular, we propose the “personal realization capability” as a complementary component for analyzing the capability of individuals or households to convert assets into livelihood outcomes. The new component allows for a more person-centered analysis that focuses on people, their social living conditions, and the social structure surrounding them.ISSN:2662-928

Partizipative Forschung und Prozesse der nachhaltigen Entwicklung : demokratische Schlüsselqualifikationen von Forschenden

Inwiefern können die Sozial-, Geistes- und Naturwissenschaften in transdisziplinärer Hinsicht einen Beitrag zum Konnex von Klimawandel, Demokratie und Bildung leisten? Welche Schlüsselqualifikationen benötigen Forschende in der universitären institutionalisierten wissenschaftlichen Bildung, um Prozesse der nachhaltigen Entwicklung zu begleiten und dabei bspw. Veränderungsoffenheiten zu identifizieren, nicht gesellschaftliche Macht- und Ungleichheitsverhältnisse fortlaufend zu reproduzieren? Ausgehend von der Annahme, dass sich die Klimabewegung (auch) als Appell an die Forschung/Wissenschaft lesen lässt, einen Beitrag zu sozialem Wandel zu leisten, wird im Aufsatz die partizipative Forschung diskutiert, der wir die Möglichkeit zuschreiben, eine Neupositionierung des Menschen im Prozess der nachhaltigen Entwicklung zu begünstigen. Denn als treibende Kräfte partizipativer Forschung gelten Forderungen wie Umweltgerechtigkeit. Entlang von zwei Fallstudien wird exemplarisch skizziert, wie in angewandten partizipativen Forschungsprojekten zum Klimawandel Fragen der Umweltgerechtigkeit und damit zusammenhängend der Einkommenssicherung im Kontext der Globalisierung angegangen werden können und welche Herausforderungen sich dabei für Forschende stellen. Anschließend wird argumentiert, dass es gilt, spezifisches Wissen im Curriculum der Hochschulen zu verankern, damit (angehende) Forschende einen Beitrag zum ethischen gemeinwohlorientierten Ziel der (globalen) Klimagerechtigkeit leisten können

Vulnerability to Food Insecurity in a Telecoupled World: Insights From Vanuatu

Food insecurity is a pressing problem in many regions across the world. Drivers of food insecurity are becoming increasingly embedded in sociocultural and economic processes that transcendent multiple spatial and temporal scales. This is due to the increasingly globalized interconnections of places and people. Understanding this complexity is essential to devise locally relevant and effective adaptation strategies to tackle existing vulnerabilities causing food insecurity. This article analytically addresses the complexity in cross-scale dynamics by combining a case study from northern Vanuatu with a conceptual analysis of the broader socioeconomic dynamics within the telecoupling framework. Our aim is to identify drivers of vulnerability that span multiple temporal and spatial scales and contribute to food insecurity in a given location while exploring the relevance and applicability of the framework for the holistic assessment of vulnerability to food insecurity. The transdisciplinary approach used in this work involved local community members and local agriculture extension officers at all stages of the study process. For this, we used complementary research methods, such as workshops, participant observations, and in-depth interviews. The results showed that potential vulnerability to food insecurity in northern Vanuatu is likely to be related to individual choices aimed at maximizing income, enabled by economic development and driven by socio-cultural changes. These choices and their consequences are perceived in many cases to be responsible for lower subsistence food production and the overuse of natural food resources. However, economic changes in particular can also enable additional livelihoods that complement existing (subsistence-based) strategies, leading to a reduction in one-sided dependencies and thus to an overall increase in the resilience of local livelihoods. We find the telecoupling approach to be a useful tool to holistically capture a local vulnerability context. However, we also encountered challenges in describing telecouplings that operate over longer time scales.ISSN:2571-581

How local communities attribute livelihood vulnerabilities to climate change and other causes: a case study in North Vanuatu

Understanding the causal factors of livelihood challenges and associated vulnerabilities is essential for developing viable adaptation strategies. However, clarifying which livelihood challenges can be attributed to which causal factors remains a challenge. In this paper, we used a case study in Vanuatu to show how local populations attribute subsistence challenges to underlying causes. Particularly, we are interested in whether there is a tendency to view climate change as the primary cause, and if so, why. We followed a participatory approach involving local community members and experts at all stages of the study process. For this, we used complementary research methods such as resource mapping, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with local community members and local agriculture experts. The results show that local populations are indeed inclined to attribute problems to external causes, particularly climate change. However, the results also indicate that this external attribution is not definitive. Rather, we find that over the course of participatory reflection, attribution to climate change was supplemented and even replaced by internal causal factors, such as changes in garden practices. Our findings suggest that the initial emphasis on climate change may be related to prevailing narratives that may have influenced individual perceptions of the study participants and created social desirability. If such bias is not recognized, the narratives risk being reified, with potential new insights being overlooked. As a result, local attribution may overstate or understate specific causes, such as climate change.ISSN:0165-0009ISSN:1573-148