Situated adaptation: Tackling the production of vulnerability through transformative action in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone

Quealy, Harry M.; Yates, Julian S.

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102374

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…These may relate to co-evolving environmental changes, economic and cultural changes, and societal or policy responses to threats and risks. In this way, the term resonates with recent contributions of social research on climate change (Ensor and Hoddy;Mehta and Harcourt;Quealy and Yates, 2021). Specifically, we introduce two different theoretical perspectives: that of dialogical sense-making and critical phenomenology that can contribute significantly to this shift.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…We have argued that dialogical sense-making and critical phenomenology are helpful in bringing transformation processes to where they are tangible and percieve-able, and part of ongoing lived experience. The approaches allow a return to how transformative changes are made sense of, experienced, and storied, within the shared unfolding of people's lives (Ensor et al, 2019;Quealy and Yates, 2021), and this not only in an empirical way -but in ways that allow for the combination of empirical and philosophical inquiry.…”

Section: Relocationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dethroning the Planetary Perspective: Dealing with Actually-Occurring Transformations Using Dialogical Sense-Making and Critical Phenomenology

Woroniecki¹,

Wibeck²,

Zeiler³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Transformation studies lean towards the more practical aspects of change processes and are not yet dealing adequately with their personal and political dimensions. They are arguably constrained in doing so in their current stances, either fixated on systems and how to control them or on individualistic values and behaviours. In this study we show the range of actually-occurring societal transformations that people face can be usefully approached through a combination of dialogical sense-making and critical phenomenology. While distinct, these approaches share a concern with experience and meaning-making, concerns which are often neglected when societal transformation becomes abstracted and alienated from people’s lives. The two approaches reveal how societal transformational change is situated, shared, embodied and laden with diverse meanings. Dialogical sense-making expands the theorisation of the experiential, personal and political dimensions of transformation and shows how the practical dimension of change is always personal and political. Critical phenomenology addresses how the experience of transformation help shape subjectivity, as a lived relation to the world, and sheds light on taken-for-granted, lived norms about bodies and transformative change. Drawing together the three spheres of transformation – the practical, personal, and political - allows a fuller grasp of the complexity in which new worlds may emerge. Through a discussion of insights from these approaches, we develop a language and framework to understand how people interact with change processes. This development allows new questions about transformative change, based on a reframing of transformations that brings them closer to people’s lives. Together these approaches broaden and deepen social-science and humanities contributions to transformation studies and sustainability science.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Relocationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dethroning the Planetary Perspective: Dealing with Actually-Occurring Transformations Using Dialogical Sense-Making and Critical Phenomenology

Woroniecki¹,

Wibeck²,

Zeiler³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Other socio-economic (e.g., social unrest, conflict) and demographic factors (e.g., population growth, urbanisation) increase climate change vulnerability in fragile and climate-sensitive areas, particularly areas prone to long-term droughts and flash inundations [57][58][59]. Schilling et al [58] define water and land as critical resources sensitive to climate shocks, therefore vulnerability to extreme weather and climate patterns create stress on the availability and accessibility of arable lands and water resources.…”

Section: Climate Change As a Stress Factor Enhancing Intra-community ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Barriers in Participative Water Governance: A Critical Analysis of Community Development Approaches

Shunglu¹,

Köpke

Kanoi

et al. 2022

Water

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Participatory approaches within development programs involving common-pool resources are intended to revive a community’s role in managing these resources. Certainly, to ensure the successful and equitable use of such resources, community participation is essential. However, in many cases, attempts at applying a participatory approach often fail to genuinely engage all subgroups within a community due to assumptions of homogeneity and a lack of understanding of the deep socio-political divisions between people. As a result, development programs can be plagued by these pre-existing power relations, potentially resulting in tokenistic community participation and the continuation of elite capture of natural resources to the same extent or worse than before a development program has begun. This in turn can negatively impact good governance and the fair distribution of a common pool resource. This paper explores the use of participatory approaches in water projects, assessing to what degree power relationships impact water management programs. Using a qualitative approach, the paper identifies key challenges of participatory water governance through case studies from Turkey, India, and Sri Lanka, exploring: lack of social trust, elite capture of participatory processes, power heterogeneity and imbalances at the micro-level, and a lack of inclusive participation in decision-making. Based on the analysis of these case studies, this paper argues that it is essential for participatory development interventions to understand socio-political power relations within a community—an inherently complex and contested space. The so-called “exist-strategies” of a community project play a key role to decide the project sustainability that grants the “community ownership” of the project. Such an understanding can bring about greater success in development interventions attempting to address water-related issues.

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“…Some scholars suggest that adaptation strategies employed by small groups have the potential to create bottom-up institutional changes (May 2021) as an effective supplement to top-down approaches, which are likely to be slower, more technical, and expensive (Schofield and Gubbels 2019). However, the burden of individual and household adaptation falls unevenly on smallholder producers whose livelihoods depend directly on natural resources and who have imperfect access to information or lack institutional protections (Quealy and Yates 2021). Therefore, certain small-scale and ordinary coping mechanisms may result in unanticipated tradeoffs (Smith et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sedentarization as an adaptation to socio-environmental changes? Everyday herding practices in pastoralist communities in southern Ethiopia

Wang¹,

Liao²,

Brandhorst³

et al. 2022

E&S

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As humanity is faced with various changes in social-environmental systems, adaptation efforts have become increasingly important. Significant effort and resources have been spent on devising overarching, large-scale strategies in response to climate change and associated socioeconomic challenges. However, the mechanisms of adaptation employed by individuals and households in ordinary, daily life have received insufficient scholarly examination. This research aims to demonstrate the significance of everyday adaptation strategies of smallholder pastoralists who are on the front lines of changing socioeconomic regimes in East African drylands. We analyzed the daily spatiotemporal patterns of livestock behavior to understand everyday adaptation practices. Two different pastoralist communities in the Borana Zone in southern Ethiopia were compared, one of which keeps the traditional mobile pastoralism livelihood, while the other has sedentarized because of socio-environmental changes and policy incentives. The mobile pastoralists have larger grazing areas, and their cattle spend more time on foraging and resting. In contrast, the sedentarized pastoralists utilize the land near their settlements intensively and the cattle travel longer distances on average. Our findings suggest that sedentarization is a constrained adaptation strategy at best because it increases the recursive use of rangeland and its fragmentation and forces livestock to move more intensively on a daily and seasonal basis.

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Situated adaptation: Tackling the production of vulnerability through transformative action in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone

Cited by 12 publications

References 75 publications

Dethroning the Planetary Perspective: Dealing with Actually-Occurring Transformations Using Dialogical Sense-Making and Critical Phenomenology

Dethroning the Planetary Perspective: Dealing with Actually-Occurring Transformations Using Dialogical Sense-Making and Critical Phenomenology

Barriers in Participative Water Governance: A Critical Analysis of Community Development Approaches

Sedentarization as an adaptation to socio-environmental changes? Everyday herding practices in pastoralist communities in southern Ethiopia

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