This thesis explores links between mobility and resilience in the context of climatically
driven environmental change. Using two villages in Anhui Province, China as a
comparative case study, this paper investigates the impact of two types of climatically
driven environmental change (a flood and a drought) with a specific focus on the role of
mobility. The study employs a novel conceptual framework that uses an adapted
version of Leach et al’s (1999) ‘Environmental Entitlements Framework’ to understand
the processes, characteristics and outputs that contribute to resilience at different
levels of analysis. Through the use of this novel conceptual approach, issues of power
and social heterogeneity are explored within a resilience framing, the lack of which is a
common criticism of many existing resilience studies.
The analysis reveals that, for both communities, those who elected to stay tended to
exhibit more resilience than those who were obliged to stay, highlighting the important
roles that immobility and choice play in relation to resilience. Significant tension was
found between resilience and wellbeing; increases in levels of resilience did not always
appear to correspond to increases in wellbeing. The research also reveals interesting
inter and intra level interactions between individuals of the same household and
between households and the village that threatens the very existence of the villages
themselves. The thesis concludes by highlighting the importance of (im)mobility and
choice as important influences on resilience, urging for a more critical and cautious use
of the concept of resilience with regard to development initiatives and the highlights
importance of drawing out interactions between and within different levels of analysis to
aid understanding.
Key words: Resilience, adaptation, migration, climate change, Chin
