Exploring Strategies that Build Livelihood Resilience: a Case from Cambodia

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Livelihoods in Cambodian fishing communities are complex and dynamic. Fluctuations in resource abundance, seasonal cycles of resource use, and changes in access create conditions that bring challenges for rural households, as do economic and policy drivers. Nonetheless, people are continuously "doing something" in response to these stresses and shocks. This paper sets out to explore how households and community members attempt to mitigate against such challenges. The analysis of livelihood stresses and shocks in two Cambodian fishing villages shows that diversification is a commonly used strategy for coping and adapting. Analyzing responses at multiple scales, with emphasis on resilience-building strategies at household and community levels, illuminates aspects of livelihoods. To study local-level perspectives of resilience, well-being was used as the surrogate of resilience, producing three clusters of responses related to economic conditions, resources, and relationships.

Generating and Fostering Novelty

“…Resource management in social-ecological systems features heavily in this issue, including the significance of involving individuals with ecological knowledge in participatory processes and adaptive management of wetlands in Australia (Fazey et al 2006), in support of the processes by which local ecological knowledge is generated among fishers in Kenya (Crona 2006), in the development of coping and adaptive livelihood strategies for dealing with drivers and change in Cambodia (Marschke and Berkes 2006), and in the use of adaptive management as a conflict resolution process (Walkerden 2006).…”

Local adaptation for livelihood resilience in Albay, Philippines

“…As income and food security, among others, are threatened by climate change, households and communities require the skills, assets and other resources necessary to adapt to changes. The diversity, amount and balance between assets influence how community members view their own well-being and resilience (Marschke and Berkes, 2006;IFAD, undated). Resilience demonstrates the persistence of relationships within a system and is a measure of the ability of these systems to absorb changes of state and driving variables and parameters and still persist (Holling, 1973;Folke et al, 2002).…”

case study from the southern Cape linefishery 2: Considering one’s options when the fish leave

“…[10][11][12] Fishing as a livelihood is complex and dynamic, and concerns not only individuals but also households or groups attempting to make a living to meet various nutritional and economic needs. 13,14 The livelihood perspective can be used to analyse poverty, vulnerability and marginalisation at the geographical scale of experience. 15 A contemporary view of the livelihood perspective suggests that livelihoods are multidimensional and cover economic, political, cultural, social and ecological aspects of the system.…”

“…19,20 Change and renewal may furthermore serve to nurture novelty and innovation in those social-ecological systems that are deemed to be resilient. 13,20 Resilience thinking demands that 'how' and 'whether' adaptive responses are able to maintain long-term functioning of social-ecological systems, while also examining predictability. 12,18 The resilience displayed by a system can be both a positive and negative attribute -whilst resilience in the system will ensure continued existence of the social units as they absorb multiple perturbations, systems that are too resilient may continue to cope and mitigate and resist adapting over the long term, even though long-term adaptation would result in a more desirable state of the system.…”