Learning from the history of disaster vulnerability and resilience research and practice for climate change

Humanity has long sought to explain and understand why environmental processes and phenomena contribute to and interfere with development processes, frequently through the terms and concepts of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘resilience’. Many proven ideas and approaches from development and disaster risk reduction literature are not fully considered by contemporary climate change work. This chapter describes the importance of older vulnerability and resilience research for contemporary investigations involving climate change, suggesting ways forward without disciplinary blinkers. Vulnerability and resilience as processes are explored alongside critiques of the post-disaster ‘return to normal’ paradigm. The importance of learning from already existing literature and experience is demonstrated for ensuring that complete vulnerability and resilience processes are accounted for by placing climate change within other contemporary development concerns

Participatory Action Research for Dealing with Disasters on Islands

Much disaster research has a basis in non-island case studies, although mono-disciplinary disaster-related research across past decades has often used case studies of individual islands. Both sets of work contribute to contemporary ‘participatory action research’ which investigates ways of dealing with disasters on islands. This paper asks what might be gained through combining disaster research, island studies, and participatory action research. What value does island studies bring to participatory action research for dealing with disasters? Through a critical (not comprehensive) overview of participatory action research for dealing with disasters on islands, three main lessons emerge. First, the island context matters to a certain degree for disaster-related research and action. Second, islandness has much more to offer disaster-related research than is currently appreciated. Third, more studies are needed linking theory to evidence found on the ground on islanders’ terms. Limitations of the analyses here and future research directions are provided

Foreword

In many parts of the world, mountains have long been marginalised in popular discourses on the sole basis that they are often inaccessible and remote from the major centres of power (e.g. Funnel and Parish, 2001; Cosgrove and della Dora, 2009). This picture of marginality has been accentuated by the alleged “extreme” hazardousness of mountainous environments struck by spectacular earthquakes, landslides, flash floods, droughts and avalanches, amongst others, which are often embedded in local ..

Préface

Dans bien des régions du monde, les montagnes ont longtemps été marginalisées dans les discours populaires, du seul fait qu’elles restent souvent inaccessibles et éloignées des centres majeurs de décision (par exemple Funnel et Parish, 2001 ; Cosgrove et Della Dora, 2009). Cette idée de marginalité a été renforcée par la réputation d’extrême dangerosité de l’environnement montagnard, frappé par de spectaculaires séismes, des glissements de terrains, des crues rapides, des sécheresses, des ava..

Préface

Dans bien des régions du monde, les montagnes ont longtemps été marginalisées dans les discours populaires, du seul fait qu’elles restent souvent inaccessibles et éloignées des centres majeurs de décision (par exemple Funnel et Parish, 2001 ; Cosgrove et Della Dora, 2009). Cette idée de marginalité a été renforcée par la réputation d’extrême dangerosité de l’environnement montagnard, frappé par de spectaculaires séismes, des glissements de terrains, des crues rapides, des sécheresses, des ava..

Foreword

In many parts of the world, mountains have long been marginalised in popular discourses on the sole basis that they are often inaccessible and remote from the major centres of power (e.g. Funnel and Parish, 2001; Cosgrove and della Dora, 2009). This picture of marginality has been accentuated by the alleged “extreme” hazardousness of mountainous environments struck by spectacular earthquakes, landslides, flash floods, droughts and avalanches, amongst others, which are often embedded in local ..

Climate Change's Role in Disaster Risk Reduction's Future: Beyond Vulnerability and Resilience

A seminal policy year for development and sustainability occurs in 2015 due to three parallel processes that seek long-term agreements for climate change, the Sustainable Development Goals, and disaster risk reduction. Little reason exists to separate them, since all three examine and aim to deal with many similar processes, including vulnerability and resilience. This article uses vulnerability and resilience to explore the intersections and overlaps amongst climate change, disaster risk reduction, and sustainability. Critiquing concepts such as “return to normal” and “double exposure” demonstrate how separating climate change from wider contexts is counterproductive. Climate change is one contributor to disaster risk and one creeping environmental change amongst many, and not necessarily the most prominent or fundamental contributor. Yet climate change has become politically important, yielding an opportunity to highlight and tackle the deep-rooted vulnerability processes that cause “multiple exposure” to multiple threats. To enhance resilience processes that deal with the challenges, a prudent place for climate change would be as a subset within disaster risk reduction. Climate change adaptation therefore becomes one of many processes within disaster risk reduction. In turn, disaster risk reduction should sit within development and sustainability to avoid isolation from topics wider than disaster risk. Integration of the topics in this way moves beyond expressions of vulnerability and resilience towards a vision of disaster risk reduction’s future that ends tribalism and separation in order to work together to achieve common goals for humanity

Island contributions to disaster research

Island case studies have contributed significantly to disaster research theory and application, including more recent work on climate change adaptation. Island-related work in development and disasters has been particularly adept at building on the past in order to create a better development future through disaster risk reduction, one subset of which is climate change adaptation. However, recent emphasis on climate change has to a large degree bypassed previous and deeper understandings of island contributions to disaster research as well as the importance of island situations. This paper details key elements from the literature on island-based development and disaster research – especially regarding the themes of vulnerability and resilience theory as then applied in practice for island migration – linking this material with a critiquing analysis of ongoing work emerging from climate change. Despite the importance of dealing with climate change, especially for islands and islanders, it must always be placed within wider disaster and development tasks. This includes embracing previous work in order to learn from, without becoming mired in, the past

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