Criticizing resilience thinking: A political ecology analysis of droughts in nineteenth‐century East Africa

Abstract

The looming alteration in climate has spurred a veritable industry over the past two decades of overly simplistic scenario modeling and theoretical predictions of future changes brought about by global warming, some based on research on human responses to fluctuations in rainfall and temperature in the past. Scholars who stress the complexity of climate and social processes have critiqued such crude models from two different approaches: resilience thinking and political ecology. In this article, I assess the resilience framework through an analysis of the effects of droughts over a long time perspective, between circa 1800 and 1950, in two East African communities: the Kamba of Kenya and the Gogo of Tanzania. My conclusion is that political ecology theory provides a better explanation than the resilience approach. In both cases, rather than primarily adapting to climate events, the ability of communities and households to cope with droughts varied depending on how they were integrated into regional economies and the world system when those droughts occurred. The effects of droughts and long-term fluctuations in precipitation were mediated through exchange networks, the flow of currencies, and the processes of stratification in local resource control, which in turn affected land use and settlement patterns.

The role of social vulnerability in improving interventions for neglected zoonotic diseases: The example of Kyasanur Forest Disease in India

“…Despite the growing consensus that smallholders are disproportionately impacted, the context of their individual and/ or household vulnerabilities occasioned by exposure to disease hazards are still poorly understood, particularly in developing contexts [4,17]. Different empirical observations have reported that household vulnerabilities are often predicated on myriad of social, cultural, economic, institutional and biophysical factors that surround disease dynamics, necessitating holistic frameworks to better understand differential patterns of exposure to disease hazards [19][20][21][22]. The political ecology approach is highly advocated as a plausible framework to unpack the interplay of contextual and institutional factors influencing individual or household vulnerabilities and their relative capacity to implement changes in response to disease stressors [20,21,23].…”

“…Different empirical observations have reported that household vulnerabilities are often predicated on myriad of social, cultural, economic, institutional and biophysical factors that surround disease dynamics, necessitating holistic frameworks to better understand differential patterns of exposure to disease hazards [19][20][21][22]. The political ecology approach is highly advocated as a plausible framework to unpack the interplay of contextual and institutional factors influencing individual or household vulnerabilities and their relative capacity to implement changes in response to disease stressors [20,21,23]. Hakansson [20] for instance, observes that the political ecology approach elucidates the complexities of human-environmental interrelationships as a central aspect of differential distribution of power, economic inequality, property relations, and entitlements overtime [21,23].…”

“…The political ecology approach is highly advocated as a plausible framework to unpack the interplay of contextual and institutional factors influencing individual or household vulnerabilities and their relative capacity to implement changes in response to disease stressors [20,21,23]. Hakansson [20] for instance, observes that the political ecology approach elucidates the complexities of human-environmental interrelationships as a central aspect of differential distribution of power, economic inequality, property relations, and entitlements overtime [21,23]. In particular, disease vulnerability can be understood as a heterogeneous and temporal characteristic of differentiated cultural or social units, mediated by several interacting factors [20,21,24], [ Fig 1].…”

“…Hakansson [20] for instance, observes that the political ecology approach elucidates the complexities of human-environmental interrelationships as a central aspect of differential distribution of power, economic inequality, property relations, and entitlements overtime [21,23]. In particular, disease vulnerability can be understood as a heterogeneous and temporal characteristic of differentiated cultural or social units, mediated by several interacting factors [20,21,24], [ Fig 1]. A political ecology perspective therefore offers an analytical lens to critically elucidate the human-environmental interrelationships 'through a focus on hierarchically organised resource management, in which social groups and individuals are differentially situated in institutions and networks that extend well outside of the local arena', within the human-animal-environment interface [20,25].…”

“…In particular, disease vulnerability can be understood as a heterogeneous and temporal characteristic of differentiated cultural or social units, mediated by several interacting factors [20,21,24], [ Fig 1]. A political ecology perspective therefore offers an analytical lens to critically elucidate the human-environmental interrelationships 'through a focus on hierarchically organised resource management, in which social groups and individuals are differentially situated in institutions and networks that extend well outside of the local arena', within the human-animal-environment interface [20,25]. In this sense, households' PLOS GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH experiences with KFD and its associated stressors or vulnerabilities can be understood as arising within the domain of a structured and hierarchical institutional context, filtered through the broader political economy of power, social and physical capital and access to and use of the communal forest resources [25,26].…”