How Subsistence Communities Reconfigure Livelihood Systems in Response to Climate Change: A Coupled-Systems Perspective

Abstract

A defining societal challenge in the era of climate change is ensuring consumption adequacy in subsistence communities. To understand the intricacies of this challenge, we have conducted an ethnographic study of a low-income community that relies on subsistence fishing to maintain consumption adequacy. Based on our data analysis, we advance a conceptualization of subsistence livelihood systems that models the tight coupling among its three constituent subsystems: the market system, the social system, and the environmental system. These three subsystems are highly interdependent and operate in concert to maintain consumption adequacy. We then show how climate change-induced environmental disruptions threaten consumption adequacy by disequilibrating livelihood systems in subsistence settings, as well as unpack the self-directed adaptation and mitigation strategies employed by the community in response to the threat of consumption inadequacy. These response strategies create feedback loops to either preserve or attenuate the tight coupling among the three subsystems.

The Marketing Ecoverse: A Sustainable Confluence of Business, Social, and Natural Ecosystems

“…The notion of a confluence of different ecosystems has been alluded to in previous macromarketing research. Focusing on consumption adequacy in subsistence settings, Venugopal and Chakrabarti (2022) theorize the subsistence community as a system with three interlinked subsystems: the market, environmental, and social systems. Venugopal and Chakrabarti show that subsistence communities respond to environmental ecosystem fluxes by investing in feedback loops such as mitigation and adaptation.…”

“…The mitigation and adaptation loops described by Venugopal and Chakrabarti (2022) in subsistence settings can be viewed as specific cases of resilience moderation. The authors define mitigation/ adaptation loops as strategies followed by communities when climate fluxes endanger sociocultural and business ecosystems.…”

“…Three anthropocentric dimensions of these strategies, namely, exposure reduction, sensitivity reduction, and resilience increase, used to deal with the consumption inadequacy of fishing communities, are indicated. By doing this, Venugopal and Chakrabarti (2022) present a type of resilience moderation: – one that occurs when natural ecosystems disservice social provisioning systems. Following the same logic, the current study presents the possibility of six variations of resilience moderation: sociocultural provisioning systems’ reaction to natural-to-business and business-to-natural ecosystem disservices; business ecosystems’ reaction to natural-to-sociocultural and sociocultural-to-natural ecosystem disservices; and natural ecosystems’ reaction to business-to-sociocultural and sociocultural-to-business ecosystems disservices.…”

“…Although the immediate impact of materials from decomposing bikes may not be a pressing issue for these natural ecosystems, it is essential to carefully map both the biological and technical cycles of these materials (Borland et al 2016). The potential influx of millions of bikes, especially the chemical content of this influx, might negatively impact the health of critical subsistence ecosystems, leading to disequilibria at multiple levels and potentially leaving rural African communities worse off in the long term (Venugopal and Chakrabarti 2022). Therefore, any industrial detritus transferred to a bio-chemically balanced ecosystem must be accompanied by thoroughly planned mechanisms, including an entire infrastructure, to ensure proper disposal, recycling, and biochemical reintegration into natural ecosystems.…”

Climate change adaptation needs a science of culture

“…Caution: When asked, communities on the frontlines of climate change do not always perceive the impacts measured by atmospheric scientists [ 72 ]. This may mean that adaptations are working well [ 73 ]. For example, among Yucatec Maya, investment in cash cropping, social network connections and economic diversification can mediate the relationship between climate risks and reports of good versus bad harvest years [ 45 ].…”