Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

209 Uniting Resilience Research and Practice With an Inequalities Approach by Angie Hart, Emily Gagnon, Suna Eryigit-Madzwamuse, Josh Cameron, Kay Aranda, Anne Rathbone, Becky Heaver This article was originally published in SAGE Open, 6(4), 2016. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016682477 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license ABSTRACT The concept of resilience has evolved, from an individual-level characteristic to a wider ecological notion that takes into account broader person–environment interactions, generating an increased interest in health and well-being research, practice and policy. At the same time, the research and policy-based attempts to build resilience are increasingly under attack for responsibilizing individuals and maintaining, rather than challenging, the inequitable structure of society. When adversities faced by children and young people result from embedded inequality and social disadvantage, resilience-based knowledge has the potential to influence the wider adversity context. Therefore, it is vital that conceptualizations of resilience encompass this potential for marginalized people to challenge and transform aspects of their adversity, without holding them responsible for the barriers they face. This article outlines and provides examples from an approach that we are taking in our research and practice, which we have called Boingboing resilience. We argue that it is possible to bring resilience research and practice together with a social justice approach, giving equal and simultaneous attention to individuals and to the wider system. To achieve this goal, we suggest future research should have a co-produced and inclusive research design that overcomes the dilemma of agency and responsibility, contains a socially transformative element, and has the potential to empower children, young people, and families. Keywords: resilience research, resilience practice, adversity, inequalities, social justice, Boingboing resilience INTRODUCTION In this article, we explore definitions and criticisms of the concept of resilience within government policy, social justice perspectives, and the resilience research literature that are said to shape the field today. We then introduce our own approach and describe how Boingboing, our community of practice and social enterprise, supports the development of resilience research and practice that includes a strong inequalities dimension ( www.boingboing.org.uk ). This includes conducting academic research that advocates for people facing embedded societal inequalities, and is more focused on challenging inequitable policy agendas; engaging in co-produced research containing socially transformative rather than solely personally transformative elements; facilitating supported agency, and co- identifying and co-delivering responses to adversities (these may be addressing societal inequalities but may more realistically include tackling prejudice, discrimination, stigma, and stereotyping); and encouraging the research community to be open to and prepared to undertake co-produced research with groups that are perceived to be more challenging to work with, and so are underrepresented in the literature, but whose voices are equally or more important as a result. We outline some examples and steps that we are taking toward our goal of consolidating resilience research and practice with a social justice approach in the support of children, young people, and families. Resilience Research Initially spurred by observation of children who performed unexpectedly well in unfavorable circumstances, the first wave of resilience research sought to identify correlates of resilience with a focus on the unique qualities possessed by the person or child (Masten, 2007). With resilience perceived as purely internal it is the individual who becomes tasked with compensating for their disadvantaged circumstances. The second wave of research was interested in associations between correlates of resilience. Identification of risk and protective factors as moderators and mediators of desirable outcomes expanded from the micro level of the individual to incorporate meso-level structures such as the family, school, and local community. The disadvantaged child is, from this perspective, no longer left wholly responsible for their outcomes. In addition to their own attributes, caregivers, schools, neighborhoods, and other community organizations are all seen to play a part in influencing children’s resilience. Putting the findings of the first two waves into practice, the thirdwave of research focused on developing and testing interventions. By endeavoring to improve outcomes for people facing adversity, valuable learning around effectiveness and the role of context brought to attention both the dynamic nature of resilience processes, and the importance of culture in defining meaningful outcomes (Ungar, 2004). Applying what is defined as a positive outcome within mainstream contexts to disadvantaged and marginalized groups may be inappropriate, and may lead to further exclusion. A focus on wider context and culture encourages a more systemic understanding of resilience in which the individual and his or her environment interact to produce, and construct, outcomes.