Linking Resilience & Vulnerability In Addressing Challenges
According to Miller et al (2020), there are “many areas of strong convergence” between the resilience-based and vulnerability-based approaches to understanding responses to change.
From a theoretical standpoint, the integration between the resilience and vulnerability frameworks can be found in resilience research, into which “political ecology and recent work in sustainability science” cross over (Miller et al, 2020). Both framings are concerned with the responses to change and “the interaction of slower and more rapid dynamics”, and convergence has also been identified “around exploring ecological, institutional, and livelihood diversity, and its role in buffering shocks”, “issues of scale and cross-scale processes,” and governance in general (Miller et al, 2020). Theoretical overlap is also observed in the trend within resilience research toward focusing on “the social dimensions of dealing with disturbances”, and a shift in vulnerability studies toward “the interconnections among social, ecological, and geophysical systems” (Miller et al, 2020).
In terms of methodology, both perspectives are “more pluralistic”, “very broad, encompassing many and very diverse methodological elements”, and “increasingly hybrid”, “spanning qualitative and quantitative traditions” (Miller et al, 2020). The two systems also share a common interest in agent-based modelling and the light it sheds on the “close coupling of each agent to its natural and social environments” (Miller et al, 2020). Resilience and vulnerability researchers address “similar themes and problems” and are both concerned with “multiscale temporal processes,” with a “joint recognition that more multiscale case studies are needed” (Miller et al, 2020). Both fields “are characterized by either very localized case studies based on empirical research, or global analyses based on highly aggregated data”, and both adopt “a multiscale perspective” by reason of “the interplay of multiple processes of social and environmental change, which manifest themselves at different spatial scales” (Miller et al, 2020). Further, given that both vulnerability and resilience “involve many attributes and multiple stresses,” when “in using indicators as measures”, what is needed is “dynamic indicators that capture the functional processes of the system and the interrelationships between them” (Miller et al, 2020). Finally, the concept of social-ecological systems or SES is present in both outlooks, aiding understanding of the “integration and linkages between social and ecological components of systems” (Miller et al, 2020).
In the application of the concepts of resilience and vulnerability, there is a need to translate conceptualization “in constructive ways that help to solve practical development challenges” (Miller et al, 2020). Both approaches would benefit from an improved identification of “specific intervention points and possible pathways to vulnerability reduction” as well as an outline of “the benefits and losses that would result from a failure to intervene”; both fields have been urged to locate a midpoint between proposals that are “highly specific for a locality” or “too general and normative... without necessarily consider what can be done and how” (Miller et al, 2020). More recently, there is limited overlap between resilience and vulnerability, which draws on “resilience aspects particularly in terms of social, institutional, and organizational learning” (Miller et al, 2020). In both framings, there is a “need to shift from output-directed to process-oriented research that sees knowledge as coproduced by a plurality of actors” (Miller et al, 2020).
Collaboration between stakeholders within both resilience- and vulnerability-based traditions could be hugely beneficial in addressing societal challenges in the following ways (Miller et al, 2020):-
Assessments that integrate resilience and vulnerability will “underpin more sustainable livelihood strategies and more adaptive governance”.
The joint identification of research questions would capture “the perspectives of diverse stakeholders, including the most vulnerable”.
By adopting an integrated bifocal approach to timeframes, there can be “a focus on longer term biophysical system drivers as well as nuanced, contemporary local socioeconomic realities,” thereby facilitating the design of appropriate development responses. With more multiscale case studies in both disciplines, we would be able to understand “the interaction between dynamic processes, the impediments to resilience, and the manifestation of vulnerability that occur at different scales”.
Collaboration between the two traditions could create “truly integrated approaches to inquiry into social-ecological change, and help in developing appropriately scaled case studies that go beyond the current polarized situation of local or global studies”. Integration would “draw upon the respective strengths of systems thinking in understanding dynamic social-ecological relations, and actor-oriented approaches in understanding matters of social differentiation, equity, and power,” addressing “both the socially differentiated nature of responses to social-ecological change, and the environmental implications of investment in different coping and adaptation activities”.
More specific, practical, and constructive recommendations from an integrated standpoint would constitute “strong [incentives] to policymakers and practitioners to push for the appropriate changes in policy, governance, and action”.
Integration would also allow us to capitalise on “the relative success of practically applying vulnerability assessment to a more refined understanding of socially differentiated responses to social-ecological change,” as well as enhancing “our understanding of the environmental implications of coping and adaptation activities”.
Reference:
Miller, F., Osbahr, H., Boyd, E., Thomalla, F., Bharwani, S., Ziervogel, G., Walker, B., Birkmann, J., Van der Leeuw, S., Rockström, J., and Hinkel, J. (2010) ‘Resilience and Vulnerability: Complementary or Conflicting Concepts?’, Ecology and Society 15(3) 2010, p.11.