Can We Be Both Resilient and Well, and What Choices Do People Have? Incorporating Agency into the Resilience Debate from a Fisheries Perspective.

Abstract

In the midst of a global fisheries crisis, there has been great interest in the fostering of adaptation and resilience in fisheries, as a means to reduce vulnerability and improve the capacity of fishing society to adapt to change. However, enhanced resilience does not automatically result in improved well-being of people, and adaptation strategies are riddled with difficult choices, or trade-offs, that people must negotiate. This paper uses the context of fisheries to explore some apparent tensions between adapting to change on the one hand, and the pursuit of well-being on the other, and illustrates that trade-offs can operate at different levels of scale. It argues that policies that seek to support fisheries resilience need to be built on a better understanding of the wide range of consequences that adaptation has on fisher well-being, the agency people exert in negotiating their adaptation strategies, and how this feeds back into the resilience of fisheries as a social-ecological system. The paper draws from theories on agency and adaptive preferences to illustrate how agency might be better incorporated into the resilience debate

Conviviendo con la escasez. Cultura y adaptabilidad pesquera en el lago de Chapala

“…Resulta interesante que estas acciones adaptativas se enfocan en preservar el estatus de la actividad pesquera mediante ayudas al sector que le permitan convivir con las modificaciones ambientales antes que revertirlas (Coulthard, 2012). Así se evita poner en riesgo las identidades, en este caso milenarias, basadas en el aprovechamiento del lago y en la agencia necesaria para enfrentar vulnerabilidades económicas y ambientales (Macken, 2009).…”

Agency and Resilience: Teachings of Pikangikum First Nation Elders, Northwestern Ontario

“…As noted previously, resilience literature has increasingly included discussions about agency and resilience as it has tried to bring together systems and agent-centered approaches (Coulthard 2012). In this discussion to date, however, there has been little discussion of the worldviews of indigenous communities regarding agency, adaptive-renewal cycles, and resilience.…”

Exploring agency beyond humans: the compatibility of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and resilience thinking

“…Similarly, from social psychology, resilience is defined as "... an active process of endurance, selfrighting, and growth in response to crisis and challenge" (Walsh 1998:4). Both of these definitions imply an active role for humans (as individuals and collectives) to act beyond the given social structure; a capacity often referred to as agency (Bohle et al 2009, Coulthard 2012. Agency allows humans to learn from and reflect on experiences, forecast trajectories of future development, and by doing so, increase the resilience of their livelihood.…”

“…Whereas personal agency comes from everyday decision-making processes in people's lives and personal choices on particular circumstances in life, political agency entails the ability of humans (individuals or collectives) to affect social processes. This intentionality gives humans an active role in their process of adapting to changes and being resilient instead of being the passive subjects of shocks (Bohle et al 2009, Coulthard 2012). In development sociology or social cognitive theory, agency comes from the capacity of humans to act and change a state of affairs within the society (Long and van der Ploeg 1994) or the interactions and synergy between members of a community (Bandura 2001).…”

“…The concept of agency within the later evolution of resilience thinking (Pelling and Manuel-Navarrete 2011, Coulthard 2012 was derived from various social discourses, such as a well-being approach (Lister 2004), social cognitive theory (Bandura 2001), theory of structuration (Giddens 1984), and development sociology (Long and van der Ploeg 1994). From a well-being perspective, agency is realized by an autonomous and purposive actor-which is attributed solely to humans.…”