Building liberal resilience? A critical review from developing rural Asia

Abstract

Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Abstract 'Resilience' is the catchword of the moment. For many of the mainstream institutions of international development, building resilience is embedded in a wider commitment to market liberalism. Taking three entry points, the sectoral, spatial and socio-governmental, this paper critically explores the connections, interdependencies and tensions between social resilience and the market imperative. The paper argues that 'liberal resilience' plays into a growth-developmentresilience 'trap' wherein economic growth has become a de facto synonym for development and, often, development a synonym for resilience. Drawing on empirical cases from across rural Asia we highlight the incongruities and inconsistencies in this line of logic. The paper suggests that there is a need to critically judge the market mechanism and the complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which the processes that have been set in train by market integration impinge on resilience.

Between a rock and a hard place: Vulnerability and precarity in rural Nepal

“…It is not so much that households, with development, have escaped their prior condition of vulnerability, with an accompanying strengthening of their resilience in the form of 'sustainable' livelihoods; rather, resilient or sustainable livelihoods need to be seen in a triangular relationship with (possibly) declining vulnerability on the one hand and (possibly) growing precarity on the other. For example, rural-based households may benefit in the short-term from development interventions promoting debt-financed cash crop production but this may leave them open to market shocks in the medium and long-term, thereby raising the possibility of foreclosure and accentuating their precarity (Rigg and Oven, 2015). The challenge, then, is to identify the causalities, structural as well as stochastic, that might account for declining vulnerability alongside increasing precarity.…”

“…It lies in a set of inherited conditions and tendencies which development interventions can address whether through education, roads, technology, money or training. The underpinning logic here is the need to bring people into the mainstream and, more particularly, to connect them to the market (Rigg and Oven, 2015). Vulnerability, therefore, tends to be viewed as a reflection of a pre-existing state of marginality or exposure, whether social (e.g.…”

A Typology Framework for Trade-Offs in Development and Disaster Risk Reduction: A Case Study of Typhoon Haiyan Recovery in Tacloban, Philippines

“…However, decision-making that drives inequity in society is not aligned with either resilience [60] or sustainable development [61]. The current global neo-liberal economic model is, simultaneously, seen as a solution to global poverty, as well as a cause of continued inequity [58] and increased vulnerability [62]. While this model of economic growth may bring economic opportunities to marginalised populations, it requires social participation to have a positive impact on equity [63].…”

“…Societal participation is a challenge for the vulnerable [64]. Rigg and Oven [62] claim that the trade-off between market led economic development and resilience is ignored, at least partially, because it challenges the prevailing system.…”

The Best of Intentions?

“…Physical processes and conditions clearly do play a role in producing risk, particularly in a country such as Nepal. But it is all too easy in constructing policy frameworks for DRR to overlook the policy-induced or accentuated risks and vulnerabilities that contribute to risk production in the first place (Rigg and Oven, 2015). Risk is not just a product of natural hazard and human frailty set within the operational ambit of market forces, as the Nepal National Planning…”