Between Resilience and Adaptation: A Historical Framework for Understanding Stability and Transformation of Societies to Shocks and Stress

Haldon, John; Binois-Roman, Annelise; Eisenberg, Merle; Izdebski, Adam; Mordechai, Lee; Newfield, Timothy P.; Slavin, Philip; White, Sam; Wnęk, Konrad

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-71587-8_14

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The spate of recent studies of societal resilience, based on historical cases, fall into the second level of case-study research: the cases are assembled and juxtaposed, but without any cross-case analysis beyond rough post-hoc generalizations (Haldon et al, 2018, 2020, 2021; Izdebski et al, 2018; van Bavel et al, 2020). In archaeology, this trend is exemplified by studies such as Scarborough and Isendahl (2020) and Murphy and Crumley (2022).…”

Section: Three Types Of Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How can research on past urban adaptations be made useful for sustainability science?

Smith

2023

Glob. Sustain.

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Cities in the distant past-as documented by archaeologists and historians-provide an extensive record of urban successes and failures, yet this information has had little impact on the field of sustainability science. I explore two reasons for this situation. First, these scholars have often failed to synthesize their data scientifically, and, second, they have not approached the transfer of past knowledge to present research in a rigorous manner. I organize discussion these issues around three arguments for the present value of past cities: the urban trajectory argument, the sample size argument, and the laboratory argument.

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Section: Three Types Of Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is a very weak, non-scientific form of argumentation (Smith, n.d.). Several papers by John Haldon and colleagues (Haldon et al, 2020(Haldon et al, , 2021 also follow this approach. They review cases of resilience in historical societies, and end with post-hoc conclusions instead of comparative research findings based on testing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How can research on past urban adaptations be made useful for sustainability science?

Smith

2023

Glob. Sustain.

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“…The spate of recent studies of societal resilience, based on historical cases, fall into the second type of case study research: the cases are assembled and juxtaposed, but without any cross-case analysis beyond post-hoc generalizations (Haldon et al, 2021;Haldon et al, 2020;Haldon et al, 2018;Izdebski, Mordechai, & White, 2018; van Bavel et al, 2020). Even economists-accustomed to pursuing quantitative analyses of large samplesare forced to use the second level of case study research in their attempts to link up ancient and modern urban resilience because of the lack of systematic data (Glaeser, 2022).…”

Section: Focused Case Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is a very weak, non-scientific form of argumentation (Smith, n.d.). Several papers by John Haldon and colleagues (Haldon et al, 2021;Haldon et al, 2020) also follow this approach. They review cases of resilience in historical societies, and end with posthoc conclusions instead of comparative research findings based on testing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How can Research on Past Urban Adaptations be Made Useful for Sustainability Science?

Smith¹

2022

Preprint

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I explore the different ways historical and archaeological data can be deployed to contribute to research on urban sustainability science, emphasizing issues of argumentation and epistemology. I organize the discussion around three types of argument. The urban trajectory argument exploits the long time series of early cities and urban regions to examine change at a long time scale. The sample size argument views the role of early cities as adding to the known sample of settlements to increase understanding of urban similarities and differences. The laboratory argument uses data from past cities to explicitly test models derived from contemporary cities. Each argument is examined for three contrasting epistemological approaches: heuristic analogs, focused case studies, and quantitative studies. These approaches form a continuum leading from lesser to greater scientific rigor and from qualitative to quantitative frameworks. Much past-present argumentation requires inductive logic, also called reasoning by analogy. Sustainability scientists have confused this general form of argument with its weakest version, known as heuristic analogs. I stress ways to improve methods of argumentation, particularly by moving research along the continuum from weaker to stronger arguments.

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“…Indeed, the concept of resilience has long been used to consider the complexity and stability of social-ecological systems in the face of crisis and change (Folke et al, 2005). Resilience is therefore put forward as an adequate framing to understand how to increase the stability and adaptability of social-ecological systems as well as a desirable state to aim for (Haldon et al, 2021). In turn, a climate-resilience objective enables a greater focus on driver interactions (Bleischwitz, 2020), vulnerability (Eriksen et al, 2020), feedback mechanisms (Maru et al, 2014), and threshold effects (Kinzig et al, 2006), key concepts in the assessment and management of cascading impacts (see section 3.2).…”

Section: Adaptation -Current Perspectives and Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Climate Change Cascading Risks: Different Visions of the Future

Becdelievre

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The impacts from climate change flow-on and propagate across interconnected human and biophysical systems. These cascading impacts pose a unique and unprecedented challenge to decision-makers responsible for planning and implementing a climate change adaptation response in a timely manner. A growing body of theoretical and practical research on climate-related cascades is now available to support decision-making for adaptation. However, little is known about how local decisions-makers perceive cascading impacts and risks and how that shapes their adaptation response. In the context of Aotearoa New Zealand national climate change response, this case study investigates how considering impacts and risks from cascades shapes the adaptation response of local government and private sector actors in Te Tauihu-Nelson Tasman, a coastal region located in the northern parts of the South Island. Three research questions were asked: (1) how do actors from local government and private sector perceive and problematise cascading impacts and how that shapes their adaptation response? (2) What local climate change adaptation narratives emerge when these actors consider cascading impacts and risks? And (3) what are the similarities and differences between local, regional, and national adaptation narratives related to cascading impacts and risks? To answer these questions, seventeen participants from local government and the private sector took part in a workshop and semi-structured interviews. A riskscape narrative framework was used to make sense of how these participants perceived cascades and their implications, responded to the risks they pose and envisioned successful adaptation. Findings first indicated that understanding cascades and their implications requires a technical and formal engagement with the concept. Second, while local government actors located in Te Tauihu-Nelson Tasman understand that adaptation to cascading impacts is a challenge needing proactive attention – particularly in raising community awareness of those risks–, the local private sector has not yet turned their mind to this challenge. Third, two common but diverging visions of adaptation co-exist at different levels of governance, somewhat in opposition: a vision of reorganisation of governance and economic systems, and a vision of de-complexification of vulnerable systems underpinned by a paradigm shift. Notable implications of these findings are: (1) communicating risks from cascades to the public and the private sector needs to be accompanied by technical information to convey the significance of those risks and motivate adequate and effective responses, and (2) adaptation to cascading impacts is a whole-of-society project that requires alignment between all actors, so further research is needed to understand how these different visions can be reconciled.

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Between Resilience and Adaptation: A Historical Framework for Understanding Stability and Transformation of Societies to Shocks and Stress

Cited by 6 publications

References 58 publications

How can research on past urban adaptations be made useful for sustainability science?

How can research on past urban adaptations be made useful for sustainability science?

How can Research on Past Urban Adaptations be Made Useful for Sustainability Science?

Understanding Climate Change Cascading Risks: Different Visions of the Future

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