Resource Management and Geography - Theses

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    Negotiating the future: risk, meaning and politics in climate change adaptation in rural Vanuatu
    Granderson, Ainka Alison ( 2015)
    This thesis examines the multiple constructions of risk, and of local adaptive capacity, shaping climate change adaptation planning and decision-making in rural Vanuatu. Climate change adaptation is often viewed instrumentally as a technical response to climate-related risks. Using a cultural-political approach, I recast it as process of negotiation among diverse actors, meanings and interests. I focus on how actors variously construct risks and local adaptive capacity, and struggle over what constitutes ‘appropriate’ adaptation to climate change. I analyse two climate change adaptation projects involving rural communities in Mota Lava and Tongoa islands in Vanuatu. A combination of semi-structured interviews, focus groups and participant observation were used to capture constructions of risk and local adaptive capacity among actors engaged in the projects, and how these constructions translated into plans and interventions. I hone in on how villagers in Mota Lava and Tongoa talk about changing climatic risks and their capacity to adapt in their own terms. I seek out explanatory narratives that highlight villager’s notions of causality and agency in relation to changing risks. I contrast this with how practitioners and policymakers discuss changing climatic risks and adaptive capacity within rural communities. I identify what they see as adaptation priorities and appropriate types of interventions. I then examine whose constructions gained traction within the project, how and to what effect. I seek out examples of how actors interact, building consensus for or contesting the identified priorities and interventions. Analysis revealed distinct ways of imbuing meaning to risks and adaptive capacity, and issues of power and politics. Notably, villagers constructed and attached significance to changing climatic risks in relation to wider socio-economic changes. Maintaining their livelihoods and valued traditions were key in the face of future uncertainty. Practitioners and policymakers tended to construct these risks as a biophysical problem requiring a technical fix. Tensions arose over efforts to build adaptive capacity within the projects. However, villagers’ concerns were largely sidelined. Practitioners, policymakers and community representatives, such as chiefs and public officials, were able to exert influence due to their access to resources, political status, prevailing cultural norms, and an uneasy alliance. To ensure just and transparent outcomes, close attention is needed to the logic and politics of participation in adaptation planning and decision-making at the community level.
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    Insights into mainstreaming climate change adaptation: a study of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement
    McNaught, Rebecca ( 2015)
    This thesis aims to understand how the global Red Cross Red Crescent Movement has attempted to mainstream climate change adaptation into its programmes. The need for and merits of mainstreaming as an approach to addressing the impacts of climate change are discussed in the literature on climate change adaptation. However, to date there are very little examples and critiques of this as an approach relating to humanitarian institutions. A theoretical framework derived from research on mainstreaming gender, disaster risk management and climate change is used as the foundation for analysing the mainstreaming efforts of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. The methods for this analysis include document analysis, semi-structured interviews, participant observation and case study research. There are three components to the analysis: a chronology of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement’s mainstreaming efforts between 1999 and 2012; an analysis of the outcomes of a global climate change mainstreaming programme implemented over nearly six years in 64 countries; and a case study outlining the attempts of the Solomon Islands Red Cross to incorporate climate change considerations in its programmes. There are three key findings of this thesis. The first is that climate change communication with communities and the wider public, particularly in developing country contexts, is difficult and a barrier to mainstreaming climate change. Though the climate change adaptation literature acknowledges the important role of climate change communication and translation of climate information in mainstreaming, it doesn’t provide detailed empirical analysis of how this should be done in practice. The second is that mainstreaming is not expensive, but does require long-term, concerted investment. This need for a relatively low-cost, but long-term investment perspective, is not clearly highlighted in the literature on climate change adaptation. This is most likely because climate change adaptation is still in its infancy. The third major finding of this thesis is that mainstreaming is affected by fluctuations in organisational capacity, so organisational development is an important component of adapting humanitarian agencies to climate change. The thesis’ findings imply that the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement has an important role to play in communicating climate change to the wider public and the communities that it works with. In order to support this and the work of other actors globally, far more research, training and guidance on climate communications is required. Finally this thesis demonstrates that the broad commitments made by global institutions to mainstream climate change adaptation will require concerted long-term investments, including especially in organisational capacity.
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    Understanding adaptation: households and bushfire risk in Mount Dandenong
    Mortreux, Colette ( 2014)
    Despite growing evidence of the need for climate change adaptation, it is not well understood. Adaptation is a complex social phenomenon in which climate risk is negotiated and acted upon in social and environmental contexts. This complexity makes adaptation difficult to research and there are few empirical studies that investigate adaptation in practice. In lieu of evidence about adaptation practices, many researchers instead assess the capacity to adapt, despite little evidence to suggest that adaptive capacity explains the practice of adaptation. This thesis makes a contribution to knowledge about adaptation to climate change by examining the extent to which households in Mt. Dandenong are adapting to bushfire risk, and the extent to which their adaptation practices are explained by their adaptive capacity. It studies household preparation for bushfires in Mount Dandenong as this is a good proxy for adaptation practices, and it compares this with an assessment of the their adaptive capacity (by examining their wealth, health, education, knowledge, and social capital). The research then examines alternative factors that might be explaining or influencing adaptation in the case study. The thesis finds that very few households are adapting well, despite a high level of adaptive capacity. There is a tenuous relationship between adaptive capacity and adaptation within the sample. There is a disparity between what people could do to adapt, and what they actually do. High adaptive capacity does not ensure that adaptation occurs. The findings suggest that to understand the adaptation practices of households, greater attention needs to be paid to the factors that trigger people to apply their available capacities.