Can Community Resettlement be Considered a Resilient Move? Insights from a Slow-Onset Disaster in the Colombian Andes

Abstract

The degree to which communities can best withstand various forms of external stress, as well as what constitutes community resilience has been a matter of debate in discussions of development, resilience building, adaptation and transformation.Drawing on insights from a field expedition to the indigenous reserve of Aponte in the Colombian Andes, this paper engages with the concept of transformationaland community resilience and problematizes the concept focusing particularly on its tendency to assume that disasters are one-off, sudden events that allow for sustainable recovery in their aftermath. Aponte faces complete ruination by a slowonset geological hazard which has prompted discussions of relocation among other solutions-raising questions of whether and how resilience can be understood in the context of perpetually worsening conditions of environmental change.

Community resilience and continuous challenges: A qualitative analysis of the functioning of communities in the aftermath of persistent and ordinary stressors

“…Differently, when the impact of slow-onset changes becomes severe (Staupe-Delgado 2019a, 2019b, 2020, actions aimed at functioning within the status quo (i.e., first-order changes) no longer enable adaptive responses and communities are compelled to pursue second-order changes, that is to move towards an upheaval of the status quo and transform their asset. However, our findings revealed that such transformative strategies require multilevel and large-scale interventions that go beyond community competencies.…”

“…While the literature on CR in the aftermath of acute stressors is copious (Kimhi & Shomai, 2004; Paton et al, 2001; Tobin & Whiteford, 2002; Kendra & Wachtendorf, 2003), the investigation of CR when facing chronic stressors is still in its early stages (Pasca et al, 2022). As pointed out by Staupe‐Delgado (2020), the conceptualizations of CR based on the distinction between “pre‐adversity” and “post‐adversity” phases cannot be applied to the analysis of community responses in the context of slow‐onset disasters that unfold over a prolonged period of time. Generally speaking, either a full recovery or a complete return to a stable condition is quite impossible in the aftermath of continuous challenges (Staupe‐Delgado, 2019b).…”

“…In a similar vein, in accordance with Faulkner et al (2018, p. 24), in this study CR is conceived “as an emergent property of a complex and dynamic system forged by diverse relationships between a set of resilience‐enhancing capacities that together contribute to enabling or constraining CR in different ways, depending on the context” and the type of stressors. On the basis of this notion of CR, the present study examined the perspective of community members on continuous challenges and on the baseline functioning of their communities when confronting these phenomena to gain further knowledge of CR and, in particular, on how “is it possible to be resilient against perpetual [natural] hazard impacts that will not cease, but instead continue to intensify over time” (Staupe‐Delgado, 2020, p. 19)…”

Mitos y realidades de la minería aurífera en Colombia

“…Una opción es construir narrativas de panorámicas de largo plazo que enfatizan y se concentran en los aspectos negativos, hablando del reasentamiento como un proceso de pérdida, de duelo, de fractura de identidad y de desvinculación del territorio, en una lógica victimal de dolor y desesperanza (Jessee, 2020). Pero olvidan que también las comunidades son resilientes (Staupe-Delgado, 2019), que la adaptación se ve como esperanza y que también la memoria del reasentamiento se puede construir como reto para la transformación y la inclusión a condiciones de vida diferentes en donde pueden construirse bases para que las siguientes generaciones progresen y se incorporen mejor al mundo que les tocará vivir (Moomen et al, 2016).…”

Progress, traditions and future directions in research on disasters involving slow-onset hazards

“…In combination with a structural perspective focusing on sub-national, national and international authorities as well, such studies would not only contribute to an increased appreciation of idiosyncrasies between community and expert narratives, but also to an enhanced understanding of the lived experiences of affected communities-lived experiences which arguably take on different forms depending on hazard onset speed and pattern. Lastly, engaging with the question of how communities cope with disasters involving slow-onset hazards that do not end, or the impacts of perpetual types of slow-onset hazards (see for example Staupe-Delgado, 2019), holds the promise of advancing knowledge not only on the impacts of slow-onset processes brought about as a result of climatic change but also how communities balance feelings of place-boundedness, how some places gradually become uninhabitable, and the oftentimes lack of attention given to disasters involving slow-onset hazards by relevant authorities.…”