Resource Management and Geography - Theses
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ItemOutsourcing adaptation: examining the role and influence of consultants in governing climate change adaptation( 2017)The aim of this thesis is to examine the role and influence of consultants in governing climate change adaptation. The thesis is guided by three research questions: how did consultants become involved in advising governments on adaptation planning; what work do consultants do as advisors; and how do consultants reproduce themselves in adaptation planning? In answering these research questions, this thesis develops a conceptual framework that theorises adaptation governance as a governmental programme shaped by (and shaping) the practices, materialities and spatial-temporalities of consulting. The research combines a broader historical analysis of adaptation consulting (2004-2015) with a multi-sited and multi-scalar institutional ethnography of adaptation consulting as it was performed over a two-year period (2014-2015) in an adaptation planning consulting project and at conferences, training events and other sites. This thesis finds that (1) consultants are advising governments on a wide range of adaptation issues and across scales, places and time so as to deeply entangle public and private actors in adaptation governance; (2) the project creation and business development work of consultants renders adaptation both techno-managerial and governable by the market; and (3) the involvement of consultants in advising governments on planning for a changing climate constitutes adaptation governance in ways that highlights the increasing depoliticisation of public policy development in Australia. The thesis concludes with discussion of the implications for the future of adaptation governance in Australia, as well as the contribution of this research to broader debates on geographies of governance and productions of neoliberal expertise.
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ItemOrganisational culture and adaptive decision-making( 2015)This thesis aims to explain the effect of organisational culture on adaptation decision-making. It examines the influences of culture on the adaptive decision-making capacity of four case study organisations interacting within the Reef Water Quality Protection Plan (Reefplan) for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It finds the mix, strength and persistence of adaptive decision-making practices is strongly influenced by organisational culture. It concludes that organisational cultures will continue to influence Reefplan’s effectiveness by mediating the adoption and sustainability of adaptive practices.
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ItemNegotiating the future: risk, meaning and politics in climate change adaptation in rural Vanuatu( 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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ItemInsights into mainstreaming climate change adaptation: a study of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement( 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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ItemUnderstanding adaptation: households and bushfire risk in Mount Dandenong( 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.
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ItemDrought, power and change: using Bourdieu to explore resilience and networks in two northern Victoria farming communities( 2013)It is often assumed that social networks are sufficiently strong in rural communities to assist individual community members in times of crisis by providing support and advice. This research examines how social networks operate in two rural communities in northern Victoria and whether these networks contribute to building resilience to climate change impacts, as defined by drought. The research questions are based on the characteristics of social-ecological resilience to bring together the human and biophysical aspects of the system. The research is underpinned with Bourdieu’s ‘theory of practice’ to identify how power structures operate in the case study communities. I undertook a case study approach to investigate two sites in northern Victoria to allow for some comparative analysis and to help understand the cross-scale interactions. I used a mixed methods approach including in-depth interviews with 44 farmers and service providers; participant observation which included spending 8 weeks at each site and attending a variety of events; and a document and archival search for the environmental and social history for the last 130 years. My findings show issues of power are prevalent in the research communities - predominantly power through discourse. Current institutional structures do not provide the flexibility for farmers to learn and adapt to changing conditions. Their adaptive capacity is constantly weakened through a range of factors where drought is only one of the variables. The reactivity and inconsistency in the policy process confuses ‘signals’ between scales often leading to maladaptive practices and responses at the farming and regional scales. As the social-ecological system in this research becomes less stable over time, experiencing more intense shocks occurring at shorter intervals, the system gets closer to reaching its threshold. Over the past 130 years, technology and institutional adaptations in the pursuit of productivism have disguised the harshness of the landscape where ‘drought’ becomes the culprit and the production system is never questioned. Farmers’ innovation, resilience and adaptation are all being constrained by values and power structures that are outside their control. Institutional structures reinforce existing systems to such an extent that there is no space to consider the landscape in different ways. Using Bourdieu’s ‘theory of practice’ as a theory to underpin resilience thinking is a constructive way to understand the links between scales and expose power structures that do not support social-ecological resilience in a way where resilience is about the capacity to be flexible – these structures support resilience as persistence.