Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

20 missing in the diagram, those issues were added to the final version. Finally, delegates were asked to characterise the different stakeholders in the system. To be precise, participants were asked to rank from 1 (low) to 5 (high) the level of influence each stakeholder group has on the local food system. During this characterisation, participants were invited to consider in their assessment what resources each stakeholder can allocate for this purpose and the level of organisation and the reputation of each. Similarly, participants were asked to rank the stakeholders from 1 (low) to 5 (high) according to their interest in the problem (i.e., resilience of food security). The author tabulated the results into a single chart showing the average level of influence of each stakeholder group. Analytical Framework The results were analysed in light of personal construct theory (PCT) [15]. PCT is based on the assumption that a person needs to make sense of the problem to address it: “a person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he anticipates events” [30] (p. 7). Thus, to analyse resilience, stakeholders need first to make sense of what resilience means. To illustrate how this cognitive process unfolds, this paper adapts the simplified model proposed by Eden [31] to examine how stakeholders construct their own interpretations of resilience (see Figure 2). According to Eden’s [31] model, stakeholders make sense of the concept of resilience by selecting particular elements that are applicable to the problem at hand and its context. This perception is then filtered through the individual system of values and beliefs to articulate its own interpretation of what resilience means in practical terms. This separation of selective perception and construal follows the personal construct theory of Kelly [15]. Figure 2. Construction of stakeholders’ interpretation of resilience. Note: Adapted from Eden [31]. There is no clear distinction between values and beliefs, as they are closely interconnected [31]. However, for analysis purposes, this paper explores two separate interconnected aspects of the beliefs and values systems: strategic agendas and mental models. The term strategic agenda is used here to describe the set of goals each stakeholder has for the system. Similarly, the termmental model is used to describe the conceptual representations each stakeholder has about how the system works [32]. Strategic agendas and mental models are not separate entities. They support each other, and together, they are supported by wider individual value systems [31]. In policymaking settings, closely linked to the understanding of what resilience means in practical terms, is the concept of adaptability or the “the capacity of actors in the system to influence resilience” [33] (p. 5). Stakeholders’ adaptive actions depend on how they perceive the disturbance is changing the conditions of their system. Since timing, magnitude and origin of the disturbance are, at least to some extent, unpredictable, the nature of the change that the disturbance produces deviates from the normal system-near-equilibrium analysis [34]. In these conditions of high uncertainty, identifying the mechanisms driving adaptation is not straight forward but depends on the stakeholder’s mental models about how the system works. To analyse how stakeholders’ understand the system, this paper uses the reflections of Mayumi and Giampietro [35] about self- modifying systems and the theories of Funtowicz and Ravetz [36] on emergent systems. According to the aforementioned sources, the explanations each stakeholder group gave to the system behaviour were classified into: (a) endogenously driven: the observed effects of disturbances affecting the system are the result of the functional links between its different elements. Adaptation emerges from the mechanisms the system has to regulate itself and can only be enhanced by strengthening them [35]. The solution to the problem is within the system boundaries. (b) exogenously driven: the disturbance affecting the system comes from outside the system and, to adapt to the new conditions introduced, the system needs of external interventions that “push” it back to its equilibrium state. The solution is outside the system boundaries.