Community resilience

There is a considerable number o f definitions o f the term ‘community resilience’ because o f the different epistemological orientations and methodological practices. The “variety o f academic definitions and concepts o f resilience can confuse or invite confusion” (Twigg, 2007:

5). Community resilience is defined as the ability o f community members to continuously adapt to adversity and to the negative consequences o f a change or misfortune. Community resilience is viewed by several scholars as the ability o f the community to bounce back in response to adversity or alternatively, it is the ability o f a community to adapt to changes (Holling (1996), W aller (2001), Klein et al (2003), Adger et al (2005), Mileti (1999), Patton (2001), Perrings (2006), Ganor and Ben-Lavy (2003) and Butler et al (2007). The definition o f community varies. “Communities are composed o f built, natural, social and economic environments that influence one another in complex ways” (Norris et al 2008: 128). In this study ‘community’

denotes the people resident in an area that is geographically defined, such as Muzarabani. A plethora o f definitions are also given by different scholars from a variety o f disciplines. Below is a table o f a selection o f scholars and their definitions o f community resilience.

Table. 3.1: definitions of community resilience by different scholars

Mayunga (2007: 2) “ ...the capacity or ability o f a community to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover quickly from impacts o f disasters” .

Plodinec (2009: 7) “ ...the capability to anticipate risk, limit impact, and bounce back rapidly through survival, adaptability, evolution, and growth in the face o f turbulent change” .

Holling (1973: 14) A measure o f the persistence o f systems and their ability to absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between populations or state variables.

Aldrich(2012: 7) The ability o f the neighbourhood, ward, or area to engage in a positive networked adaptation after a crisis or a neighbourhood capacity to weather crises such as disasters and engage in effective and efficient recovery through coordinated efforts and cooperative activities.

Ainuddin and

Routray(2012: 26)

The ability o f the social system to respond to and recover from disasters. It includes those inherent conditions that allow the system to absorb impacts and cope with an event.

W alker et al., (1981:

495)

“ ...the ability to adapt to change by exploiting instabilities” and that it is not simply “the ability to absorb disturbance by returning to a steady state after being disturbed” .

Source: Generated by Rosemary Kasimba

It is considerably difficult to select one best definition from a variety o f definitions given by different scholars because each o f them, despite the weaknesses it may have, makes a positive contribution to the study o f disasters. Patoni, Violanti and Smith (2003: 63) are o f the view that the basic idea o f community resilience derives from the idea o f bouncing back and that means that the ability o f the community to cope with a change is the core tenet o f community resilience. In other words, community resilience can be described as the ability o f the community to continuously cope with change.

According to Gunderson et al (2002: 5), “resilience can be defined from two different perspectives namely ecological and engineering perspective” . Engineering refers to “the speed o f return to the steady state following perturbations” (2005: 5). It also refers to “a single stable state or equilibrium, to which a system has to return after a major disturbance” (Wilhelm 2011:

35). This understanding o f resilience is applicable in the disciplines o f physical science and material engineering. “Ecological resilience recognizes multiple equilibrium states or domains

of attraction, within a basin of attraction” (Wilhelm 2011: 35). Allison and Hobbs (2004: 6) note that “ecological resilience focuses on three fundamental themes that include resilience and adaptive change from one state to the other in systems with multiple stable states; cross scale interactions (panarchy) and lastly, reorganisation and renewal after perturbations and disturbances using heuristic models or metaphors of adaptive cycles linked across spatial and temporal scales”.

As a result of the existence of multiple, contradictory and complementary definitions, Mayunga (2007: 31-32) postulates five main defining features of resilience as follows:

a) Resilience focuses on the functioning of the system and its self-reorganising capacity following a disaster. This means that the community should be able to adapt quickly following a disaster and it should be able to function effectively, as was the case before it was hit by a disaster. However, this is to some extent questionable since a disaster can damage infrastructure and disrupt some livelihood activities. Such a scenario makes the lives of community members more vulnerable.

b) Resilience takes a long-term perspective which involves a long-term recovery process after a disaster. This means that resilience can be measured in terms of the time it takes to recover or come back to normalcy (equilibrium). A resilient community in Mayunga’s view is “...one that resumes its previous growth trajectory quickly”.

c) Resilience is also understood as the opposite of vulnerability. This means that “The more resilient the community, the less vulnerable the community is regarded”

(Handmer and Dovers, 1996: 487).

d) Resilience contains the notion of sustainability which Mayunga (2007: 4) defines as long term survival at a non-decreasing quality of life. This concept allows the community to use resources wisely and more sustainably.

e) Adaptation is also regarded as being of the core of community resilience. Adaptation can be described as the ability of a system to adjust to a disaster in order to reduce its vulnerability and enhance its resilience. That means individuals should be able to adapt or adjust to adverse conditions imposed by a disaster.

Although “it is not clear as to how this concept should be measured and or mapped” (Mayunga, 2007: 1), adaptive capacity and community resilience emphasize the ability of people to cope with disasters or to bounce back following a disaster. The concept of community resilience to disasters became prominent especially after the adoption of the Hyogo Framework for Action:

Building the resilience of Nations and Communities to disasters during the World Conference on Disasters that was attended in January (18-22) 2005 in Kobe, Hygo, Japan. Moreover, adaptive capacity, just like community resilience, is a relative and dynamic concept that does not have a specific definition. “It is context specific and varies from country to country, community to community, among social groups and individuals over time” (Smit and Wandel, 2006: 287). There is a wide range of definitions (of the phrase adaptive capacity) given by different scholars and for the purposes of this study, the definitions given by Gallopin (2006), Smit and Wandel (2006) and the IPCC (2007) were chosen.

Community resilience can be broken down into three types and these are transformative, absorptive and adaptive capacity. Absorptive resilience is described as the ability to minimise exposure/sensitivity to shocks and stressors through preventive measure and appropriate coping strategies to avoid permanent, negative impacts (Starr and Tabaj, 2015: 5). Adaptive resilience is also described as the ability to make proactive, informed choices and changes in livelihood strategies in response to long term social, economic and environmental change (ibid:

5). Transformative resilience involves government mechanisms, policies, regulations, cultural and gender norms, infrastructure, community networks, and formal and informal social protection mechanisms that constitute the enabling environment for systemic change (ibid: 10).

Indicators of resilience Capacity

Source: Starr and Tabaj, (2015: 14).

The components of each of these three types of resilience illustrated above link well with the components of social capital set outin Chapter Two. The links will be explored below.

According to Gallopin (2006: 300), adaptive capacity is described as “the capacity of any human system from the individual to human kind to increase (or at least maintain) the quality of its individual members in a given environment or range of environments”. Thus, what the term suggests is regarded as the ability of people to keep on conducting their day to day routines in different environments regardless of whether or not a disaster occurs. However, this definition is too general. If the environmental change is too intense, people are more likely to be affected negatively no matter how ready they might be.

Smit and Wandel (2006: 287), define adaptive capacity as the “general ability of institutions, systems and individuals to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities or to cope with the consequence”. This definition is not limited to individuals or people but includes institutions and systems and their ability to cope with changes. The researcher believes that this definition is water tight and, therefore, appropriate for this research. It explains the ability of people, institutions and systems to adjust to environmental and other potential changes. This definition acknowledges the fact that people, institutions or systems are more likely to be affected in the event that there are environmental changes even though they might have the resources. It therefore, encourages people, systems and institutions to adjust and adapt to the changes. In addition, the IPCC (2007: 727) defines adaptive capacity as the “ability or potential of a system to respond successfully to climate variability and change which includes adjustments in behaviour, resources and technologies”. Like the Smit and Wandel (2006: 287) definition, this definition expresses the ability of the system to be able to withstand the harsh conditions resulting from climate change. It indicates that individuals should be able to respond successfully to changes.

These definitions assert that the term ‘adaptive capacity’ means the ability of people to adjust to changes. Thus, the above explanations on adaptive capacity show that although the term can be interpreted in different ways, there are similarities in terms of its meaning. Generally, the term explains the ability of systems, people and institutions to be able to adjust to changes.

However, the study is guided by a definition of community resilience that is inclusive and which reads as follows: “the capability to anticipate risk, limit impact, and bounce back rapidly through survival, adaptability, evolution and growth in the face of turbulent change”

Community and Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI), (2013: 10).