Exploring nascent climate policies in Indian cities: a role for policy mobilities?

Urban climate change adaptation as social learning: Exploring the process and politics

“…An extensive literature on the governance of urban adaptation in the global south has emerged over the past decade focusing on governance and political configurations (Bahadur & Tanner, 2014;Bulkeley & Betsill, 2005), the role of planning and innovative approaches (Carmin et al, 2012;Chu, 2016;Fisher, 2014;Hurlimann & March, 2012), and underlying drivers of urban vulnerability, particularly as these are shaped by informality (Satterthwaite & Dodman, 2013). An extensive literature on the governance of urban adaptation in the global south has emerged over the past decade focusing on governance and political configurations (Bahadur & Tanner, 2014;Bulkeley & Betsill, 2005), the role of planning and innovative approaches (Carmin et al, 2012;Chu, 2016;Fisher, 2014;Hurlimann & March, 2012), and underlying drivers of urban vulnerability, particularly as these are shaped by informality (Satterthwaite & Dodman, 2013).…”

“…Understandably, given the paucity of climatic records and future climate scenarios, adaptation planning in cities in the global south has focused more on issues of politics, governance, and vulnerability than on future-orientated problems. This has been partly due to funding pressures, project timelines, and the nature of engagement with highly formalised government processes (Fisher, 2014) and also because the focus of most urban adaptation approaches is an organisational outcome (such as a plan or strategy), rather than a cocreated solution or shared learning, even if participation is recognised as a better process by which to achieve the organisational aim. 1 There has been a broad commitment within the practice of urban climate adaptation to approaches with considerable overlap with social learning such as multistakeholder engagement, engaging different professions and technical groups, and ensuring participation of community organisations and citizens.…”

“…Although Collins and Ison (2009) play close attention to how power might operate through relations in social learning processes, this has been a difficult dimension for practitioners and other scholars to fully incorporate in theory and in practice (Ensor & Harvey, 2015). However, this work and other scholarship particularly in the global South have also emphasised the long history of engagement and structural dynamics between marginalised groups in the urban context and city governments (see, for example, Fisher, 2014;Mitlin & Satterthwaite, 2013;Satterthwaite & Dodman, 2013). For example, analysis of environmental "public goods" has shown the highly contested nature of this issue in urban spaces in India (Mawdsley, 2006;Veron, 2006) and the need for complex theorisation of actors' incentives and the historical and embedded narratives, which shape interactions and knowledge.…”

“…Towns and cities in the global south will need to face climate change at the same time as managing uncertainty around future economic, demographic, and social pathways. An extensive literature on the governance of urban adaptation in the global south has emerged over the past decade focusing on governance and political configurations (Bahadur & Tanner, 2014;Bulkeley & Betsill, 2005), the role of planning and innovative approaches (Carmin et al, 2012;Chu, 2016;Fisher, 2014;Hurlimann & March, 2012), and underlying drivers of urban vulnerability, particularly as these are shaped by informality (Satterthwaite & Dodman, 2013). There is no single accepted approach to urban adaptation.…”

“…These approaches seek to put a learning-based process at the heart of managing the inherent uncertainties and interconnectedness of adaptation. However, although the theoretical case has been made, there is limited empirical evidence of how these processes play out in local governments, especially urban governments, and how they navigate the politics and governance issues identified in the burgeoning literature on urban adaptation governance in developing country contexts (Archer & Dodman, 2015;Carmin, Anguelovski, & Roberts, 2012;Fisher, 2014).…”