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Inequality and transformation analyses: a complementary lens for addressing vulnerability to climate change Petra Tschakert
a b
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, Bob van Oort , Asuncion Lera St. Clair & Armando LaMadrid
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Department of Geography and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute , Pennsylvania State University , 322 Walker Bldg, University Park , PA , 16802 , USA b
Centre for Climate and Environmental Research Oslo (CICERO) , Gaustadalléen 21, Oslo , 0349 , Norway Published online: 09 Sep 2013.
To cite this article: Petra Tschakert , Bob van Oort , Asuncion Lera St. Clair & Armando LaMadrid (2013) Inequality and transformation analyses: a complementary lens for addressing vulnerability to climate change, Climate and Development, 5:4, 340-350, DOI: 10.1080/17565529.2013.828583 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2013.828583
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Climate and Development, 2013 Vol. 5, No. 4, 340 –350, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2013.828583
REVIEW ARTICLE Inequality and transformation analyses: a complementary lens for addressing vulnerability to climate change Petra Tschakerta,b∗ , Bob van Oortb, Asuncion Lera St. Clairb and Armando LaMadridb a
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Department of Geography and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Pennsylvania State University, 322 Walker Bldg, University Park, PA 16802, USA; bCentre for Climate and Environmental Research Oslo (CICERO), Gaustadalle´en 21, Oslo 0349, Norway Vulnerability assessments (VAs) are the dominant method to establish who and what is vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. Researchers and practitioners typically use VAs to measure material vulnerability in terms of unbalanced sets of assets and institutional vulnerability regarding socially differentiated access to rights and decision-making processes. However, as scholarship on vulnerability and adaptation aligns in a better manner with development and sustainability priorities and focuses more explicitly on interrelations between climate and global change, creative complementary approaches to understanding vulnerability are needed, both conceptually and methodologically. This article discusses the generational shifts of climate change VAs over the last 25 years, their achievements and blind spots. We note declining attention to broad structural and relational drivers of vulnerability and inequality, and an inadequate understanding of vulnerability dynamics which hampers forward-looking change processes. To remedy these blind spots, and based on the reflections on building adaptive capacity coupled with emergent debates on societal transformation, we propose a comprehensive framework for Inequality and Transformation Analyses. The framework, fusing previously fractured approaches, combines assessments of structural and relational drivers of inequalities and marginalization as well as possible solution spaces with reflective and relational opportunities for anticipatory learning and transformative change. It contributes to alternative framings for a more relational research agenda on social-ecological vulnerability and adaptation. Keywords: vulnerability assessments; structural-relational; inequality; flourishing; anticipatory learning; adaptive capacity; transformative change
1. Introduction Vulnerability and adaptation to climate change have come a long way since the first assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The literature on assessing vulnerability has moved from description and quantification of effects of climate-related hazards to understanding linkages and feedbacks between climatic and other environmental, socio-economic, institutional and political stressors, as well as attention to agency and decision making. Today, cross-scalar and nested vulnerabilities, adaptive governance, resilience, linkages to development pathways, disaster risk reduction, barriers and limits to adaptation and transformative change are at the forefront of debates and highlighted in Working Group II of the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Rapid theoretical and conceptual advances within vulnerability and adaptation research and practice hence call for novel methodological approaches that reflect the shifts from impact assessments to understanding conditions for transformative change. Linked to progressive methodologies, as we argue in this article, is
∗
Corresponding author. Email:
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a renewed recognition of structural and relational dimensions of vulnerability, tightly coupled with persistent poverty and inequalities, in contrast to a notion of vulnerability as a deficiency inherent to a person, group or social-ecological system that has dominated climate change vulnerability assessments (VAs) for the last two decades. Neil Adger (2006) traces antecedent and successor traditions in vulnerability research, some of which are vital when it comes to examining structural and relational factors that shape climate change vulnerability. Beginning with the antecedent traditions, of particular interest – albeit originally only partially related to climate change – is early work on the social vulnerability to hunger and famine. Vulnerability was understood as a failure of entitlements, truncated capabilities, disenfranchisement and a political economy and social relations favouring appropriation and exploitation by the powerful to the detriment of the poor and powerless (e.g. Bohle, Downing, & Watts, 1994; Downing, 1991; Watts & Bohle, 1993). Even earlier,
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Climate and Development scholars such as Hewitt (1983) emphasized the structural and political causes of vulnerability of the poor and the marginalized to natural hazards. These critical approaches inspired subsequent research on social differentiation and the root causes of vulnerability, as explored for instance under the pressure-and-release model of hazards (e.g. Blaikie, Cannon, Davis, & Wisner, 1994). Related studies on hazards and disasters (e.g. Burton, Kates, & White, 1993; Cutter, 1996) and vulnerability to global environmental change (e.g. Liverman, 1990) deepened an appreciation of the complexity of vulnerability. The common denominator of these initial efforts to pinpoint the social, political, economic, historical, structural and to a certain extent relational drivers of vulnerability is deliberate – and often exploitative – human action, driven by unequal power relations and exposed by environmental shocks and crises. Successor traditions (see Adger, 2006) renounced this specific power-angle in favour of viewing vulnerability as a property of coupled human– environment systems, stretched across nested scales and shaped by dynamic feedbacks between system components (e.g. Luers, Lobell, Sklar, Addams, & Matson, 2003; Turner et al., 2003). Concurrently, novel work on vulnerability to climate change and variability drew attention to future risks and innovative methodologies to assess vulnerability as a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity (Smith, Schellnhuber, & Mirza, 2001) and contextual drivers of vulnerability (O’Brien, St. Clair, & Kristoffersen, 2010). While becoming mainstream in assessing vulnerability to climate and other environmental changes, these successor traditions seemed to loosen some of their grip on structural inequalities and uneven power relations as key drivers of persistent vulnerabilities. In this article, we attempt to (re-)insert this structural lens into climate change scholarship. A shifting discourse from VAs to conditions for transformative change now calls for firm attention to the inequalities that undermine adaptive capacities, and methodological advances that expose social differentiation and remedy early blind spots in assessment design. We advocate for analyses that explicitly address structural drivers of vulnerability and their relational construction arising from inequality, marginalization, poverty and constraining social – ecological dynamics while opening doors for transformative change. An expansion of conventional climate change VAs to a more comprehensive focus on inequality and capacity for transformative change is crucial at a time when incremental adjustments to a changing world become unfeasible or undesirable, especially for millions of poor and marginalized people, while uneven wealth, high carbon foot prints and ecosystem exploitation keep rising. This expanded scope of climate change vulnerability and adaptation research is needed to respond to a holistic post-2015 sustainable development partnership (United Nations, 2013). The shift from the Millennium Development
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Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals as a central focus for a new socio-ecological global regime calls for a structural and relational lens that captures vulnerability, poverty and development in all their complexities. It also requires actionable perspectives that provide not only static views of the present but rather guide pathways towards sustainable futures. We begin by examining the recent literature on VAs in the field of climate change, and trace its generational shifts. Although we acknowledge the central role of the VAs for certain specific purposes (e.g. potential damage to infrastructure or human settlements in risk-prone areas), we focus on various framings of social and social-ecological vulnerability, how they have been assessed, their contributions to the evolving debate and particular angles of vulnerability they made invisible. We pay particular attention to blind spots regarding structural and relational drivers of vulnerability as well as vulnerability dynamics. Then, we outline a structural – relational complement to conventional VAs, placing this complement within a broad framing of relational, inclusive and forward-looking analyses in climate change research. Such a framing is reflective of the state-of-the-art understanding of adaptation, adaptive capacity and transformation and not simply a replication of earlier work on structural vulnerability (e.g. food security and famine). We address inequality and building capacity for change as core constructs of such a structural – relational lens. While the former allows us to broaden the assessment horizon from ‘the vulnerable’ to those in positions of power, the latter examines iterative learning processes about drivers of and solutions to social – ecological vulnerability. In the fourth part, we introduce Inequality and Transformation Analyses (ITAs) as one conceptual and methodological tool that foregrounds vulnerability reduction as an intrinsic part of deliberative societal transformation. We see this tool coupled with the reduction of inequalities, and the way we enhance capacity for change, for everyone.
2. Generational shifts in climate change vulnerability assessments 2.1. Reviewing the literature We approached reviewing the literature on VAs in the following steps: (1) running a query in the main database covering social science literature (SCOPUS) as a keyword search ((inequality OR vulnerability OR transform∗ ) AND (assessment OR analysis) AND (‘climate change adapt∗ ’)) for publications from 2009 to 2012; (2) filtering the results of this query for their relevance by scanning the titles and abstracts; (3) complementing the review with relevant literature on understanding, assessing and measuring vulnerability of an earlier date; and (4) categorizing and comparing the 100 selected publications
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according to their definition of vulnerability, focus, stance towards VAs, usage of VAs as a method and potential alternative methods. The review was not meant as an extensive survey of all available literature on the theme, which is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, we used it to reveal the main achievements and shortcomings of VAs and their development over time, and emerging novel methods. Finally, we compared our own findings with those presented in two recent articles that also reviewed VAs (Hinkel, 2011; Preston, Yuen, & Westaway, 2011). 2.2. Insights and achievements of VAs VAs, a legacy of early IPCC work (Hinkel, 2011), have been an integral component of climate change impact studies for various sectors and regions since the 1980s. Fu¨ssel and Klein (2006), tracing the history of VAs in climate change research, distinguished between early impacts studies, first and second generation VAs, and adaptation policy assessments. Within 20 years (1995 – 2005), research moved from science predictions of large-scale climate effects to normative, stakeholder-driven goals in adaptation decision making and policy guidance on adaptation and mitigation. In the first generation of VAs, vulnerability to climate change was not only viewed as tightly coupled with impacts, exposure and sensitivity, but started to also consider adaptation, gradually including more stress factors. Compared with earlier impacts studies, these initial VAs attempted to highlight the effects on societies given their inherent vulnerabilities, but were largely blind to local voices and dynamics. The second generation of VAs attributed people’s adaptive capacity (the ability to undertake adaptations or system changes) to climatic and non-climatic stressors at the core of the assessment, as the focus of analysis shifted from potential to feasible adaptation. Adaptive capacity was also highlighted in the IPCC around the same time (Smith et al., 2001). The shift occurred as the research community recognized the need for assessing people’s capacity, or lack thereof, to implement feasible adaptation options. This new generation of VAs applied a stronger social framing, often rooted in the analyses of economic and political processes (Cannon & Mu¨ller-Mahn, 2010). This framing considered mainly material and institutional vulnerability with a strong focus on people’s assets and access to resources, and resulted in a growing understanding of who and what was vulnerable, and to a certain extent why. Yet, studies remained heavily focused on inherent vulnerability of certain individuals, groups and systems, neglecting critical structural dimensions that would make people vulnerable. This bias is reflected in abundant peerreviewed and grey literature that also feeds into the stateof the-art knowledge as assessed, for instance, through the IPCC, and policy decision making. A Google
search in June 2013 revealed 654,000 entries for ‘climate change VA’, including .6000 from 2011 and 2013 alone. This second generation of VAs also explored the indicators of vulnerability, classifying what precise factors controlled harm. Researchers and practitioners alike generated numerous indicators at various scales, ranging from generic indicators (e.g. Brooks, Adger, & Kelly, 2005; Tol & Yohe, 2007) to national-level vulnerability metrics (e.g. Brooks et al., 2005) and local studies that assessed livelihood vulnerability (e.g. Hahn, Riederer, & Foster, 2009). The lessons learned suggest that vulnerability indicators and indices (composite measures) appear best suited for identifying vulnerable groups, regions and sectors at the local level within narrowly defined boundaries, but miss structural and systemic factors and are less suitable for complex social – ecological systems at larger scales (Barnett, Lambert & Fry, 2008; Hinkel, 2011). To date, research on climate change adaptation continues using VAs as a prominent tool, despite significant progress on the conceptualization of what shapes adaptation. A literature review of VAs by Preston et al. (2011) reveals that the large majority of assessments focus on two main objectives: problem orientation and identifying determinants of vulnerability and risks. The authors found that only 10% of VAs analysed explicitly were stated as purpose to serve as a decision-support tool moving from diagnosis to engagement with future possibilities. Hinkel (2011), in his review of VAs, confirms that most VAs aim to measure current harm while only a few apply the concept of vulnerability as a measure of possible future harm, thereby inhibiting forward-looking perspectives. In fact, the IPCC (2012) has modified its most recent definition to capture this future notion, describing vulnerability as the ‘propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected’. Compared with our own review, it appears that the main achievements of climate change VAs are twofold: understanding who is vulnerable, based essentially on inadequate material assets and/or access to institutional resources; and identifying the various risks through which people experience harm. A much smaller set of VAs appraises the assessment design itself, including objectives and methodologies. Few claim to inform adaptation processes and achieve actual change (reducing vulnerability). Pearce et al. (2010), reviewing VAs for the Canadian Arctic, also note that the key goal in climate change VAs has remained problem identification and description, not solutions. Paradoxically, a large number of VA outcomes seem to be used for policy decision making on adaptation priorities and funding, despite normative concerns and without explicitly linking to adaptation processes. Informing policy often relies on simplified messages that make complex social – environmental dynamics tangible to decision makers. In many VAs reviewed, such tangible messages seem to be
Climate and Development drawn from spatial interpretations of vulnerability, including vulnerability maps and measurements, frequently involving indicators. However, Preston et al. (2011, p. 181), in whose review 65% of studies fell into the category of mapping, caution about the misguided notion that ‘knowledge of spatial vulnerability flows inexorably into decision-making’.
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2.3.
Blind spots of conventional VAs
Despite their contributions to understanding vulnerability to climate change, conventional VAs have some notable blind spots, not only compared with earlier work on structural drivers of vulnerability but also regarding the relevance of these structural drivers for informing the adaptation process. Rather than adding to the debate on metrics for the complex and often subjective concept of vulnerability (e.g. Adger, 2006; Hinkel, 2011; Kasperson et al., 2005), we address two specific blind spots most pertinent to our argument: (1) an overemphasis on inherent vulnerability that obscures underlying inequalities; and (2) confidence in vulnerability maps and indicators that masks dynamic dimensions in people’s vulnerabilities. First, attention to structural and relational drivers of vulnerability has all but disappeared in recent climate change VAs. Kelly and Adger (2000), in an early VA, and later O’Brien, Eriksen, Nygaard, & Schjolden (2007) concluded that any sustainable response to climate change ought to address the structural causes of vulnerability, including distributional concerns. Yet, committed conceptual, methodological and practical follow-up has remained scarce. Khan (2011) explicitly critiques the presumably inherent nature of the concept of vulnerability in current VAs. He argues that vulnerability is perceived with regard to a specific person, overlooking the conditional dynamics – the multiple and often persistent structural factors that shape risks in people’s lives. Critique also comes from feminist researchers working on gender and climate change. Arora-Jonsson (2011), for instance, rejects the notion of women’s inherent vulnerability, particularly those in the Global South, not only because it denies women agency and knowledge but also because it positions female vulnerability as their intrinsic problem, their individual fault. Cuomo (2011) argues that the framing of vulnerability as something inherent to vulnerable people obfuscates the drivers that put specific individuals and groups, often women, in such precarious situations, discounting what and who makes them vulnerable. This blind spot mirrors some important lessons learned from poverty research and metrics. Relational poverty research shows that structural conditions are rarely unveiled through quantification alone. Although a narrow quantitative economic focus has provided abundant
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poverty data and statistics (how many poor people exist and where), insights from relational poverty studies illustrate that such a focus is insufficient to understand the forces that produce and perpetuate poverty and provide policy guidance for poverty reduction. Equally obscured are the relational aspects of poverty, how wealth and poverty are interlinked, and how the poor and the nonpoor coexist. Therefore, the multiple ways in which inequalities, power differentials and uneven access to resources shape vulnerabilities remain invisible. Mainstream poverty assessments also obscure alternative framings, metrics and policies. The dominant World Bank poverty line of USD 1.25 per day conceals large disparities in poverty and hunger (Pogge, 2010) while other measurements such as the multidimensional poverty index (UNDP, 2010) are only slowly gaining traction. Although no comprehensive statistical global survey of severe poverty exists, prevalent poverty statistics become a unique yet unreliable construction of reality (St. Clair, 2006). One crucial lesson to take from relational poverty studies is that poverty, just as vulnerability, should not be seen as something outside social and geographical relations, as intrinsic problems of the poor (e.g. Lawson, 2011; Mosse, 2010). Both poverty and vulnerability are structural and relational matters, shaped by uneven power relations, and require solutions not apparent in the quantitative realm alone. The second major blind spot in conventional VAs concerns inadequate attention to the dynamics of vulnerability. Most VAs are static, omitting the fluctuating contexts, and the multi-scalar and often teleconnected processes that many poor and potentially vulnerable populations face (Adger et al., 2009; Eakin, Winkels, & Sendzimir, 2009; Preston et al., 2011). This includes shifting in and out of poverty and vulnerability between seasons and from one year to the next. This flaw is intensified by over-reliance on vulnerability maps and indicators. Such spatial expressions of vulnerability, albeit highly popular, typically portray only a snapshot of vulnerability and often within a tightly delineated spatial scale: the local. Thus, they generally fail to capture the dynamic nature of vulnerability and the cross-scalar spatial and temporal drivers of structural inequalities. Besides, vulnerability maps can trigger premature decision making and a false sense of achievement and legitimacy once a map is completed (Preston et al., 2011). This may lead to the avoidance of addressing more challenging steps such as engaging with uncertainty and tradeoffs. A strong focus on maps may also distract attention from longer-term planning and preparation for future harm and opportunities. As Oreskes (2004) shows, spatial information in itself does not automatically help decision making. Thus, vulnerability mapping is recommended as one method in a suite of assessment tools, used, for instance, in combination with scenario building to
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capture uncertainty and possible futures (e.g. Hahn et al., 2009; Preston et al., 2011). Social vulnerability indicators and indices further reinforce the static notion of vulnerability, and have been critiqued for downplaying concerns over the usability of the knowledge generated (Barnett et al., 2008; Eriksen & Kelly, 2006; Klein, 2009). Hinkel (2011) finds that composite indicators may be particularly problematic, even those computed for the level of livelihoods, as the aggregation of observable variables is limited by the often narrow delineation of system boundaries and the fact that implicit preference is given to a current state rather than possible future states that may cause harm (vulnerability). Early on, Smit and Wandel (2006) advocated for practical adaptation research without feeling compelled to produce scores or ratings of a particular community’s multi-dimensional and complex vulnerability. Instead, they emphasized elucidating the nature of vulnerability, people’s experiences with changing conditions and the processes of decision-making, ideally via bottom-up participatory approaches involving ‘vulnerable’ populations themselves. Difficulty in capturing vulnerability dynamics in many VAs further hampers their ability and adequacy in grasping the process dynamics for overcoming vulnerability. Fazey et al. (2010, p. 720), in their participatory VA in the Solomon Islands, stress the importance of VAs as a process that fosters learning as a ‘practice of reflective thinking’ to understand change. However, many VAs may not attempt to inform such learning processes and support decision making. Preston et al. (2011) argue that by not purposefully engaging with uncertainty and unravelling the socio-political and institutional barriers to adaptation, standard VAs are unlikely to help decision-making and guide stakeholders in preventing harm. Failing to appreciate the importance of learning processes in VAs leaves the diagnosed ‘vulnerable’ with no practical tools to remedy their situation and boost adaptive capacity. Moreover, disregard for crucial processes of participation, ownership over possible futures and value judgments that underpin decisions over trade-offs relegate VAs to the aforementioned assessments of assets and institutional channels to information and technical resources, or lack thereof. This, in turn, reinforces the (wrong) perception that vulnerability is an inherent rather than a structural and relational problem. 3.
A structural – relational alternative
Building on insights from the literature, ongoing debates in the vulnerability-adaptation-transformation community, and our own experiences, we advocate for a structural – relational framing of vulnerability in the context of climate change and a more inclusive and forward-looking set of tools than currently available, both conceptually
and methodologically. Our framing entails two key parts: addressing inequality and building capacity for change. 3.1.
Addressing inequality
We highlight the role of systemic, structural and relational drivers of social – ecological vulnerability – the relational aspects of inequality and marginalization – in an attempt to broaden the assessment horizon from ‘the vulnerable’ to include those who are in positions of power. This entails a closer look at why people are vulnerable and what mechanisms create and sustain their vulnerability. We note that vulnerability will always exist, and so will vulnerable people; it is not something that one can simply ‘will away’ (Butler, 2004, p. 29). What is contestable is the existing and growing imbalance between who is harmed and who benefits from climatic and other shocks and stressors (Tschakert & Tuana, 2013). Our specific focus on inequality reveals this imbalance as a relational dysfunction, a fundamental injustice. It seeks to identify the underlying social, institutional, economic and political structures and processes that prolong inequality, prior to conceiving of the possible solutions. Inequality is a useful entry point for examining why climate change vulnerability continues to exist or even has increased, just as poverty, despite genuine efforts to reduce it. Persistent inequalities regarding access to and control over resources and the uneven power structures that sustain them are systematically related to statuses of social marginality (e.g. indigenous, gender, race, class, ethnicity and disability) and are at the core of structural causes of socially differentiated vulnerability (IPCC, 2012). They not only inhibit the poor and marginalized from managing daily risk and effectively coping with climatic and nonclimatic shocks (e.g. Ayers & Huq, 2009; O’Brien et al., 2010; OECD, 2011), they also represent significant barriers to enjoy a life in dignity. Today, social injustices, unequal power relations and poor governance across all scales are seen as key obstacles to overcoming vulnerability to climate change (Gaillard, 2010; Yates, 2012). On a theoretical and conceptual level, researchers once more underscore the need to pay attention to structural and contextual dimensions that shape vulnerability (Eriksen, 2013; McEntire, Gilmore, Crocker, & Peters, 2010; Schwarz et al., 2011), new inequalities produced by climate change and social responses to it (Marino & Ribot, 2012), and linkages between developmental pathways, social protection and transformation in political thinking (e.g., Ireland, 2010; Siddiqi, 2011). A preoccupation with local manifestations of climate change risks obscuring the unequal geographies of power and the political drivers of these dynamics and undermines needed contestation to move towards socio-spatial and political imaginaries in which people can outline and perform the future they want to live (Chatterton, Featherstone, & Routledge, 2013;
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Climate and Development Swyngedouw, 2013). Yet, as illustrated, most VAs continue to forego addressing inequalities and institutional and political structures as key drivers of vulnerability. A promising way to address inequalities in VAs is through the lens of socio-political and institutional barriers. We ask what concrete arrangements prohibit certain poor, marginalized and vulnerable populations from effectively exercising their adaptive capacities and preparing for and responding to shocks and stressors, climatic and otherwise. Take the example of hidden framings of power in dominant vulnerability and adaptation discourses that act as discursive barriers or traps, concealing rather than highlighting real inequalities. The overemphasis on human, physical, natural, social and financial resource deprivation among urban slum residents, mountain dwellers, subsistence farmers and poor women distracts from the larger structural and relational drivers that keep the balance tipped towards persistent marginalization. Such one-dimensional construction distracts from adaptive capacities and perpetuates negative stereotypes. Furthermore, by discursively framing, mapping and categorizing groups, societies or regions as inherently vulnerable to climate change, governmental agencies and institutional mechanisms are provided with an easy excuse to forego their responsibilities towards greater equity and well-being among national and global citizens. Yamane (2009, p. 2396), in her analysis of vulnerability and VAs in Sri Lanka, illustrates how the biased construction of technocratic ‘hazardscapes’ ‘reinforces official narratives of social and spatial disadvantage’, hence distracting from complexities between climatic changes, dynamic livelihood pathways and a broader regional political economy. The time is ripe to simultaneously highlight the structural and relational practices and processes that hinder successful adaptive responses and identify practical ways of overcoming them. A sharpened analytical lens and a mixed methodological toolbox, as discussed later, can help us systematically expose these persistent inequalities that sustain an unjust balance between harm and flourishing, embedded in an understanding of climatic and non-climatic dynamics. An explicit focus on barriers and inequalities, in turn, allows for creating strategic and positive synergies with innovative poverty reduction and development planning, including social protection programmes for sustainable livelihoods that also counter marginalization and discrimination. 3.2.
Building capacity for change
Our second entry point for invigorating and enriching VAs builds upon participatory approaches that allow presumably vulnerable populations to partake in iterative learning to enhance capacity for change. Contrary to participatory research on people’s vulnerability or adaptation, such approaches aim to enhance the existing capacities,
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embrace uncertainty and tradeoffs and inspire a sense of responsibility towards current and future conditions. People are active and reflexive agents in locally grounded adaptation and development planning, making ethical decisions about incremental adjustments or more profound transformations for human and environmental well-being. The capacity to adapt to change entails an ability to innovate and learn from mistakes, as well as anticipating and forecasting through knowledge sharing (Fabricius, Folke, Cundill, & Schultz, 2007). Enhancing adaptive capacity implies paying explicit attention to learning about past, present and future climate threats, valuing accumulated memory of response strategies and anticipating a variety of potential shocks, crises and opportunities (Nelson, Adger, & Brown, 2007). To date, few examples demonstrate how to successfully incorporate a learning component into VAs or larger integrated climate change assessments (Yuen, Jovicich, & Preston, 2012). One noteworthy exception is the work by Fazey et al. (2010) on participatory VAs in the Solomon Islands. The researchers illustrate how participation in decisionmaking is a cornerstone of capacity building among vulnerable communities. It allows people to better understand the causes and directions of change, and to find their own solutions. Learning and planning under uncertainty occurs through analysing problems, their drivers and interconnections, reflective thinking and fostering local ownership and responsibility for emerging challenges and decisionmaking. Although researchers often use ‘in-community’ methods such as focus groups and rural appraisal techniques to generate data for VAs, participants tend to remain ‘separated from the critical stages of reflection, analysis and interpretation, with most of the learning taking place in distant research institutions’ (Fazey et al., 2010, p. 714). To rectify these trends, community members, NGO practitioners and other site-specific institutions become co-learners in a joint assessment process. Such co-learning for vulnerability reduction does not have to jeopardize data quality for academic analysis. On the contrary, it can generate robust information and enable the building of capacities for change. Additional recent evidence supports the relevance of participatory engagements in VAs: the vital role of active community participation in reducing vulnerability and building resilience (Ford et al., 2010; Gaillard, 2010; Pearce et al., 2010), and understanding system dynamics, interconnections and feedbacks as fundamental for anticipating, adapting to and managing change (Miller et al., 2010). Others encourage VAs geared towards social learning over risk and VAs alone (Yuen et al., 2012), collaborative knowledge production built into VAs (Romieu, Welle, Schneiderbauer, Pelling, & Vinchon, 2010; Weichselgartner & Kasperson, 2010), and future thinking, for instance through participatory scenario building or
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theatre, to prompt reflections on values, visions and tradeoffs (Tschakert & Dietrich, 2010). At the core of such learning is what Ramos (2006) calls an ‘exercise of agency’.
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4.
Launching a model for transformation
Expanding on the existing yet often fragmented efforts to remedy structural-relational blindness in VAs, we present a tool for analysis that mirrors the shift from assessing vulnerability of certain groups or systems to enhancing adaptive capacities and capacity for transformative change. This shift pushes us to consider forward-looking ways to strive towards equitable and sustainable futures, for everyone. The term transformation conveys something more radical than mere change or even transition to a new world where climate change effects are a reality. The Special Report on Extreme Events (IPCC, 2012, p. 3) defines transformation as ‘the altering of fundamental attributes of a system (including value systems; regulatory, legislative, or bureaucratic regimes; financial institutions; and technological or biological systems)’. Transformational processes are essential for addressing social root causes of climate vulnerability (Pelling, 2011) and for deciding ourselves which futures we deem desirable (O’Brien, 2012). Transformative change calls for a fundamentally different conceptualization of the world, shaped by inter-relationality and intrinsic interdependencies between people, places and the environment and the recognition of mutual and shared vulnerabilities to motivate broad structural and societal change (Tschakert & St. Clair, 2013). Deliberative and equitable transformation is not only a possibility, but also an imperative for new forms of research and coexistence. We propose ‘Inequality and Transformation Analyses’ (ITAs) as a conceptual and methodological tool to (a) address barriers to reducing vulnerability due to persistent inequalities; and (b) create reflective learning environments for transformative change. We see ITAs as a complement to conventional VAs, with the added value of simultaneously analysing and facilitating when, where and how individuals, groups and institutions may transition from their current state of vulnerability to one of flourishing. ITAs are designed to be more attuned to examining the structural and relational dimensions of inequality that shape multiple socio-cultural, economic, institutional and political drivers of vulnerability. Drawing from the theoretical and applied work on inequalities, disasters, food insecurity, resource conflicts and gender and climate change research, ITAs are well positioned to reveal the complex and cross-scalar patterns that produce an unjust balance of flourishing and harm. Insights from collective learning and future studies allow these analyses to direct attention to factors that can transform trap-like conditions into shared visions and political imaginaries. The goal of the ITAs is not only to
assess, protect and restore people’s livelihood assets, but also to amend unequal social relations coupled with envisioning and preparing desirable pathways towards enhanced well-being. Achieving this goal implies a collaborative, iterative and forward-looking approach that engages participants across socio-economic and institutional levels. At an ontological level, ITAs promote stakeholders as authoritative actors who actively participate in decisionmaking and shape outcomes (Schro¨der, 2010). These stakeholders may range from individual citizens and community organizers to agricultural extension agents, local NGOs, governmental representatives, researchers and regional institutions. The institutions are essential as they can function as bridging and/or boundary organizations in facilitating change processes. The key is that these various stakeholders with their distinct sets of values, preferences and practices are part of one and the same analysis. Although local to regional interactions will be foregrounded, recognition of interconnections at the national and global level is vital for moving towards transformative change. ‘Powerless spectators’ may become ‘adaptive managers’ (Fabricius et al., 2007) while those in positions of power recognize interdependencies and mutual vulnerabilities. At a methodological level, we suggest a multi-methodological approach anchored in four distinct yet connected building blocks (Figure 1): (1) structural inequalities; (2) anticipatory learning; (3) solution space; and (4) transformative change. All four building blocks, outlined below, are expected to yield valuable insights into processes that are not readily observable, neither to local participants nor external facilitators or institutions, yet fundamental to flourishing, well-being and equitable future pathways. First, structural inequality: The ITA’s central methodological entry point is to assess how inequality shapes vulnerability and acts as a barrier to adaptive capacity, creating and sustaining an unjust balance between harm and flourishing. We first need to understand what capacities and opportunities different groups bring to the table, and what factors may prevent some from utilizing their full potential. This allows a first glimpse into why certain individuals and groups are predominantly vulnerable and will probably continue to be so without radical transformative change. Our approach emphasizes the relational drivers of vulnerability – how the privileged flourish at the expense of those disadvantaged along the lines of age, gender, race, class, caste and/or ethnicity. This implies collecting data on barriers and opportunities not only from those labeled ‘vulnerable’ but also from more affluent, influential and powerful members of society. Second, anticipatory learning: Supporting iterative reflective dialogue and problem solving constitutes the core of building capacity for change. Deliberative
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Figure 1. Iterative and multi-scalar methodological framework for ITAs, combining assessments (light grey/green) with enhancement of the capacity for change (dark grey/purple).
processes can embolden and empower vulnerable individuals and communities to talk and reflect about change, and to shape it. In practice, this means a series of learning activities that combine local and external knowledge, the latter particularly with respect to future climatic conditions and larger-level drivers of change (e.g. global trade and commodification of land). It also means creating the space to critically reflect upon, digest and incorporate new information into existing knowledge frames. Finally, reflection provides opportunities allowing for new ideas and practices to influence day-to-day social relations, through repeated performance of empowered agency – the ability to act and change reality. Third, solution space: Identifying and evaluating priority setting, accountability of decision making and tradeoffs is crucial for considering possible change. This entails an explicit engagement with unequal power structures, assessed for instance through power mapping (e.g. Gallagher, 2008; Schiffer, 2007) to contextualize opportunities for and barriers to power sharing. Power needs to be understood as multidimensional, dynamic and relational. Such an exercise can reveal factors that maintain unjust imbalances and lead to concrete propositions for how to shift this disequilibrium, with explicit attention to authority and accountability. To facilitate priority setting and decision making among diverse stakeholders, preferences for possible future livelihood and development pathways, value judgments and barriers need to be identified. These parameters will, inevitably, result in tradeoffs. They can be visualized in participatory planning exercises that pinpoint hazards, marginalization and layers of possible solutions and responsibilities. They can also be deliberated through theatrical performances, songs or radio debates. Adaptive and transformative
options require clearly identified tasks and responsibilities for which individuals can be held accountable. Fourth, transformative change: Initiating practices of engagement, responsibility and connectedness requires methods that explicitly acknowledge ethical considerations. Methods that explore interconnections between people and the environment, across spatial and temporal scales, are particularly suited for this purpose. Interdependencies that range from individuals to institutions ought to be captured, including cross-scalar governance challenges as well as feedback mechanisms that ripple through the entire social – ecological system. This, in turn, requires a good understanding of complex system interactions, some of which could be assessed through community-led social and environmental monitoring that feeds into flexible, forward-looking planning and decision making. Venn diagrams can depict scalar dimensions of responsibility across geographical boundaries and to future generations.
5. Conclusion We have argued for a complement to dominant vulnerability and adaptation assessments, situated within a relational, inclusive and forward-looking conceptual and methodological framework. We propose ITAs to address structural drivers of vulnerability and understand in a better manner the patterns of inequality, marginalization, poverty and constraining social – ecological dynamics that perpetuate vulnerability, while simultaneously opening doors for transformative change. We argue that deliberative and equitable transformation is not only a possibility, but
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also an imperative focus for future research as well as new forms of co-existence. Our structural –relational perspective on vulnerability is not about tweaking methodological approaches or finetuning the existing computational techniques. It is about re-inserting a critical view on the systemic and structural dimensions of vulnerability and emphasizing the relational aspects such as independencies, marginalization and flourishing in current climate change research, away from a predominant focus on ‘the vulnerable’ to include those who cause and sustain vulnerability. It is about re-conceptualizing the way we comprehend and realize dynamic and intersecting vulnerabilities and their multiple drivers, and the ways we want to envision a more just balance between harm and flourishing than we currently observe. Drawing from the theoretical approaches to structural and relational vulnerability and inequality, political contestations of climate change, recent debates on interdependencies between people as well as people and their environment and transformation, we advocate for a conceptual and methodological approach that links the assessments with building capacity for responsible change, including our own, a challenge that conventional VAs were ill suited to achieve. The suggested ITAs are both more complex and more comprehensive, fusing so far rather fractured approaches and widening the horizon of analysis from a multi-directional and multi-scalar problem space to also include a solution space for and with people, the poorest and more powerful included. While critics may be quick to discredit analyses explicitly targeted towards social change as shifting responsibilities from a disengaged state to communities of space and practice or, perhaps worse, upsetting entrenched power positions, we argue that transformative change ought to happen at multiple scales, simultaneously. At the same time, we acknowledge potential challenges associated with our proposition: high time- and resourceintensity, in certain instances at the detriment of urgent interventions, extensive training of researchers and practitioners, the exceedingly difficult task of tackling crossscalar and often disruptive dynamics and drivers of vulnerability and resistance from those who benefit from harm experienced by others, and even conflict. Nonetheless, the time is ripe for a progressive analytical and methodological change that considers complex social – ecological interactions, deliberative problem solving, development priorities and responsibilities and informs transformative pathways leading towards sustainable and equitable futures.
Acknowledgements We are grateful for constructive input by Nina Holmelin and Benjamin Preston to the early versions of this manuscript. This paper is part of the Himalaya Climate Change Adaptation
Programme (HICAP), a collaboration between CICERO, GRID Arendal, and the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). We acknowledge support for this research from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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