A disturbance innovation hypothesis: perspectives from human and physical geography

Abstract

As attention to resilience grows, debates in geography have focused on the relationship between resilience and vulnerability. This discussion raises further questions that geographers may be well positioned to address: what can be done in contexts where vulnerability is desirable, or where resilience is undesirable and where innovation may be called for? Many undesirable systems are resilient, yet strategies to break resilience down and promote innovation are not often discussed. Building on perspectives from human and physical geography, we present a new hypothesis about the relationship between disturbance and innovation. This disturbance innovation hypothesis states that low and high levels of disturbance are associated with the highest levels of innovation while intermediate levels of disturbance are associated with the lowest levels of innovation. By integrating broad perspectives from geography and its related fields, we hope to spur discussion surrounding unwanted resilience, barriers to reform, and strategies for transformation.

Exploring the nexus between sustainable tourism governance, resilience and complexity research

“…Resilience is inherent in a CAS approach to sustainability or, in other words, understanding sustainable tourism development from a CAS perspective naturally brings in the concepts of evolution, multiple equilibria and adaptation and thus of resilience as their ability to adapt. However, resilience is not always inherently good; for example, resilient systems can be capable of sustaining or exacerbating unjust power imbalances and marginalisation, and in such cases government intervention and policy decisions should seek their disruption in order to reduce inequalities and challenge the status quo (Baird et al, 2017). For Amore et al (2018), sustainability and resilience, although related, are essentially different concepts and should not be used interchangeably.…”

“Constructive tensions” in resilience research: Critical reflections from a human geography perspective

“…An opposing view is that resilience is a neutral and non‐directional concept that can be either “good” or “bad”. This is best illustrated by pathways that seem “resilient” but that most commentators would perceive as negative for the long‐term survival and adaptive capacity of a system, such as a “resilient” dictatorship or “resilient” lock‐in processes associated with extreme income disparities, unequal power and governance structures, neoliberal pathways, capitalism, neo‐colonialist processes, or entrenched environmental degradation processes (Baird, Chaffin, & Wrathall, ; Walker & Cooper, ). Grove and Adey (, p. 82) thus argued that “resilience has no constitutive power of its own”, suggesting that resilience in itself can and should not be directional, while Walker and Cooper (, p. 156) argued with reference to “rigidity traps” and “too resilient societies” that some human systems “have become so internally integrated that they are now resistant to perturbation – unable to change in the face of shocks that can be as creative and generative as they are destructive”.…”

Inherited memory, social learning, and resilience: lessons from Spain's Great Blizzard of 1888

“…A conservative approach to resilience derived from ecology (Holling, ) and often directly applied to social systems gambles on the stability of those systems above all else (Mckinnon & Derickson, ). But when understood as a return to an original state, the resilience of a social system is not always desirable because it would leave the system just as vulnerable (Klein et al ., ; Mayunga, ) or as unfair as before a disruptive event (Baird et al ., ). To avoid at least the latter outcome, precision in the use of the term resilience is required (Walker & Cooper, ) and relies on the capacity of citizens to prevent negative consequences from repeated events (Westrum, ).…”