Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

27 Alternatively, another option is to aim for a broader perspective in the analysis of resilience and to consider possible trade-offs and asymmetries in resilience between different groups and communities within the system. A broader perspective might be particularly useful when there is a conflict between long-term and short-term goals or when the boundaries of the system are not clear [53]. By using computer simulations, for example, it is possible to uncover long-term unintended consequences that might result from short-term perspectives. Uncovering unintended effects is possible because computer simulations are especially useful when the delays between the policies and their results are too large to allow for assessment by simple intuition. Simulations might also uncover unexpected and unintended consequences of policies that are beneficial to one group but negative for others. The latter is particularly important when analysing climate change problems because there are time lags or delays between policy measures (or non-action), and effects often extend beyond the normal period of analysis [54,55]. When important consequences of current policies materialise several years later (in some cases decades later), significant future stakeholders will not be present to voice their concerns and weigh in when preferences are aggregated into policy decisions. Present stakeholders might be willing to compromise the overall future detriment of the system for short-term benefits. Namely, in the resilience analysis, present stakeholders might favour policies that yield more efficiency in the short term but diminish the capability of the system to continue providing the desired outputs in the long term. The benefits for the few who are defining the problem now might be preferred over the benefits for the many tomorrow. 4. CONCLUSIONS The ambiguity of resilience is a challenge for practitioners that want to implement it as an analytical and policymaking framework in real life problems. This paper addresses the ambiguity of resilience from a cognitive and political perspective by focusing on how resilience is interpreted in practice instead of its theoretical definition. This paper argues that the interpretation of what resilience means in a specific context (resilience of what?) and the ways to achieve it are results of the values and beliefs of those with a stake in the system. In this light, the case study presented methods to identify and highlight some of the challenges and practical implications of resilience ambiguity. Specifically, this paper focuses on strategic agendas and mental models as observable expressions of stakeholders’ values, beliefs and knowledge about the system. The results discussed in this paper show that, in practice, different agendas and mental models compete during the PSP to be part of the scope of resilience analysis. The question of what outcome of the system needs to be resilient has many answers (revenues, yield, food supply). The results presented in this paper show that stakeholders have different understandings of how the systemworks. For instance, while academics and delegates from the NGO participating in the study focused on enhancing virtuous cycles within the system, the central government delegates proposed solutions outsides the system’s boundaries. All of these solutions, however, ignored the bounded rationality of the farmers and the premises of their decision-making process. Including only a few stakeholders in the process risks leaving many important aspects out of the scope of the analysis and therefore undermining its results. It is also necessary to acknowledge the role of power shaping and filtering different interpretations of resilience into a formal scope of analysis. It is expected that those with more power will attempt to influence the PSP to reflect their views and agendas. In the case presented in this paper, farmers have little influence in the PSP and their agendas might, intentionally or accidentally, be bypassed by experts (e.g., academics and researchers) and policymakers. For instance, as discussed in this paper, farmers bounded rationality and socioeconomic position might be used as an argument for disregarding their knowledge and their claims. In short, results show that the practical meaning of resilience is socially constructed by those participating in the PSP and the way this process is conducted will affect the result of the analysis. There are at least two practical implications of underestimating resilience ambiguity while structuring the scope of the resilience analysis. First, including only a few stakeholders in the process risks leaving many important aspects of the system out of the scope of the analysis to be undertaken. Second, poor stakeholder management also risks obstructing the implementation of proposed policies and, in the worst case, unintentionally harming those in more vulnerable positions. While literature starts to acknowledge the challenges and contentious implications of power in the resilience analysis (see for instance [7,14,39]), more research is needed toward defining a framework of how to facilitate negotiation during the PSP. If resilience is to play a significant role in climate change adaptation, policymakers should be careful when structuring the scope of the resilience analysis and should seek for broader participation. Such broadening is not a simple case of bringing more perspectives. Instead, it is a “fundamental shift in how knowledge is understood to operate and consequences of this for the kinds of questions we formulate prior to our analyses” [14] (p. 484). Increasing participation is not a normatively uncontroversial route either, but at least it acknowledges that resilience-based policy solutions and institutions will have distributional and, thereby, moral consequences (as most other forms of public policy do).