Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

96 4.1 Intra-community domains of resilience: resources and capacities, action and learning 4.1.1 Resources and capacities The capacities and resources of the community and its members constitute the first domain of the core of resilience within the community. Informed by the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) and its iterations (Chambers and Conway, 1992; Scoones, 1998; Ashley and Carney, 1999; Baumann and Sinha, 2001) as well as the concept of adaptive capacities (Pelling, 2011), we differentiate five types of capacities and resources. This approach also addresses in parallel the need identified by Armitage et al. (2012) for material, relational and subjective variables as well as the social subjective dimension of resilience (see Sect. 1). Natural and place-based capacities and resources relate to the protection and development of ecosystem services. This includes but is not limited to the role of land, water, forests and fisheries, both in terms of their availability for exploitation as well as more indirectly for personal well-being of community members. Place-based resources can also refer to cultural and/or heritage resources, to local public services, amenities and to the availability of access to jobs and markets. Socio-political capacities and resources account for the importance of political, social and power dynamics and the capacity of community members to influence political decision-making. Here, institutions such as the rule of law, political participation and accountability of government actors are of critical importance. Participation in governance can be both formal, for example through elections and interest representation, and informal, for example through empowerment and resistance in political decision-making. Therefore, power dynamics in community resilience include both empowerment and resistance as well as cooperation and learning (related to the differentiation between “power to” and“ power with”; see Partzsch, 2016; Allen, 1998). Therefore, structural social resources are also inherent within the structural and cognitive components of social capital (Moser and McIlwaine, 2001), i.e. networks and trust. Social capital refers to lateral relationships between family, friends and informal networks but also to more formal membership in groups, which may involve aspects of institutionalization and hierarchy. Cognitively defined trust relationships can assist in collective action and knowledge-sharing and thus seem integral for the development and maintenance of community resilience (Longstaff and Yang, 2008). Operating within the framework’s disaster risk governance domain, however, it should be acknowledged that mutual social–trust relations – as might be expressed between community members – can be differentiated from trust in authority wherein hierarchical power differentials introduce an element of dependency to the relationship (Szerszynski, 1999). Financial capacities and resources refer to monetary aspects of disaster resilience. This includes earned income, pensions, savings, credit facilities, benefits and importantly access to insurance. The role of financial capacities raises questions about availability of and access to individual and public assets and about the distribution of wealth across social collectives. The causal relationships that underpin the role of financial resources for community resources are not linear. Increases in available financial resources are not necessarily beneficial for community resilience, for example if income inequality is high and financial resources are concentrated in a very small and particular segment of society. Physical capacities and resources for community resilience include adequate housing, roads, water and sanitation systems, effective transport, communications and other infrastructure systems. This can also refer to the availability of and the access to premises and equipment for employment and for structural hazard mitigation (i.e. both at household and community scales). Finally, human capacities and resources focus at the individual level, integrating considerations such as gender, health and well-being, education and skills and other factors affecting subjectivities. Psychological factors are also accounted for here, including self-efficacy, belonging, previous hazard experience, coping capacities and awareness. These factors together can be understood to impact on individuals’ perceptions of risk and resilience but also as enablers of the community-based leadership that drives collective action. From the case study in Turkey, socio-political (having good governance, specific disaster legislation, supervision of the implementation of legislation, coordination and cooperation, being a civic society, having mutual trust, having moral and cultural traditional values, etc.) and human (e.g. gender, income, education, personality characteristics) resources and capacities were the most pronounced (Karanci et al., 2018). In one of the participatory workshops an earlier version of the framework was discussed with local stakeholders regarding the case study on flooding in northern England. It revealed that for the participants, social–political and human capacities and resources were most important for characterizing their community resilience. Indicators measuring, for example, out-migration and in-migration as well as willingness to stay in the region and engage in associational activities were proposed to describe the degree of community spirit and solidarity that was considered to be crucial for their community resilience in a region that is threatened by population loss and demographic change. 4.1.2 Actions Within the emBRACE framework, community resilience comprises two types of actions: civil protection and social protection. The civil protection actions refer broadly to the phases of the disaster management cycle, i.e. preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation