Community‐based adaptation research in the Canadian Arctic

Abstract

Community‐based adaptation (CBA) has emerged over the last decade as an approach to empowering communities to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change. While such approaches have been widely advocated, few have critically examined the tensions and challenges that CBA brings. Responding to this gap, this article critically examines the use of CBA approaches with Inuit communities in Canada. We suggest that CBA holds significant promise to make adaptation research more democratic and responsive to local needs, providing a basis for developing locally appropriate adaptations based on local/indigenous and Western knowledge. Yet, we argue that CBA is not a panacea, and its common portrayal as such obscures its limitations, nuances, and challenges. Indeed, if uncritically adopted, CBA can potentially lead to maladaptation, may be inappropriate in some instances, can legitimize outside intervention and control, and may further marginalize communities. We identify responsibilities for researchers engaging in CBA work to manage these challenges, emphasizing the centrality of how knowledge is generated, the need for project flexibility and openness to change, and the importance of ensuring partnerships between researchers and communities are transparent. Researchers also need to be realistic about what CBA can achieve, and should not assume that research has a positive role to play in community adaptation just because it utilizes participatory approaches. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:175–191. doi: 10.1002/wcc.376For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Researching climate change and community in neoliberal contexts: an emerging critical approach

“…[11][12][13][14][15][16] This literature was heavily influenced by political ecology approaches [17][18][19][20] that argued for greater consideration of politics in the environmentdevelopment field at this time. These critical debates provide a foundation for newer approaches, for example, community-based adaptation (CBA), [21][22][23] an approach that aims to empower communities to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change. However, calls for further critical study of CBAs to examine the tensions and challenges that it brings illustrate the challenge of a more critical approach filtering into policy and practice.…”

“…However, calls for further critical study of CBAs to examine the tensions and challenges that it brings illustrate the challenge of a more critical approach filtering into policy and practice. 22 While much communities and climate change focus in the global north has been given to mitigation, in the global south, where significant negative impacts on development are expected, attention has focused on adaptation through CBA. With the proliferation of payment for ecosystem services programs in the global south and moves from piloting to implementing REDD+ (climate change mitigation), communities will remain central.…”

Engaging Southwestern Tribes in Sustainable Water Resources Topics and Management

“…Research on collaborative, or participatory, research processes involving scientists, stakeholders, and policy or decision makers has shown that participants tend to trust scientific information more [57] and are more likely to use it to inform decisions when they collaborated in the process of developing the knowledge [58,59]. However, we know from research like Beierle [60], Nadasdy [61], Rowe and Frewer [62], Stern and Fireberg [63], and Ford et al [64], among others, that not all collaborative processes are equal. The ways in which scientists engage with other parties-the processes they use-matters to the outcomes.…”

“…Ford et al unpack some of the challenges and potential issues with even the most well-intentioned participatory research work focusing on CBA [64]. Based on their experiences with CBA approach to climate change impacts, they note that researchers cannot assume that research has a positive role to play in a community, just because it uses participatory processes; sometimes-new research is not the answer to a community's needs.…”

Protecting what is left after colonisation: embedding climate adaptation planning in traditional owner narratives

“…Climate adaptation planning is a key response to manage vulnerability and uncertainty from the potential impacts of climate change (Adger & Barnett, 2009;Farbotko & Lazrus, 2012;O'Brien and Wolf, 2010). Climate adaptation planning is also conceptualised as a socially and politically mediated process that draws social groups and institutions into contested decisions about trade-offs and multiple responses to observed or expected impacts of climate change, particularly in the context of diverse interpretations of vulnerability across societies (Adger & Barnett, 2009;Ford et al, 2016;International Panel on Climate Change, 2014). For Indigenous peoples in settler societies, planning is increasingly becoming a key "site" for the assertion of their rights and interests in climate adaptation and other planning arenas (Porter, 2017).…”