Resilient Communities Across Geographies

A hybrid of theory and action, Resilient Communities across Geographies uses case studies to examine how global communities use GIS analysis, local knowledge, and engagement to realize resilience.

Similar to our needs to secure the basic necessities (food, water, shelter and clothing), we need more than ever today to build resilient communities’ livelihoods which have a set of approaches that help us to manage the challenges and be tolerant to a sudden crisis. Communities livelihood involves the capacity to ensure sustainable and continuously developing activities that overcome turbulent economic, ecological, and socially complex contemporary or foreseen situations. Having intolerant communities that refuse diversified life is a serious socio-economic problem that might lead to both socio-environmental and socio-political problems which deteriorate our livelihood. Therefore, we need to tackle non-resilience as an issue of hidden opportunities that need to be exploited until we reach optimum resilience status. Being more resilient helps to create lasting change, which is what differentiates any community outcome or realized change. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to create aspiring leaders from around the world who have the right mindset and passion towards creating a difference towards this challenging, positive change.

This book discusses the resilience of communities in both developed and developing world contexts. It investigates the notion of ‘resilience’ and the challenges faced by local communities around the world to deal with disturbances (natural hazards or human-made) that may threaten their long-term survival. Using global examples, specific emphasis is placed on how learning processes, traditions, policies and politics affect the resilience of communities and what constraints and opportunities exist for communities to raise resilience levels.

Rich Pictures focuses on the value of developing visual narratives – Rich Pictures – as an important component and starting point for community participation. A key device for the community to share ideas and perspectives on current and potential future situations, Rich Pictures provide a shared space for members to set out ideas and negotiate. While Rich Pictures are widely and globally used, this is the first book discussing their use, and how and when to use this technique for maximum participatory value. A valuable read for community engagement professionals, planners, politicians, and members of affected communities, Rich Pictures is richly illustrated with examples and authors’ testimonials.

Over the past decade, resilience has gained significant traction across the nation and innovative programs are showing exciting progress in building resilient communities. For communities to be prepared for future extreme weather and climate events, as well as the chronic daily stressors, the momentum of implementing and taking action to build community resilience should continue to be fostered and expanded. Building on its many efforts dedicated to increasing and enhancing resilience, the Resilient America Roundtable hosted the State of Resilience Leadership Forum and Community Workshop on June 28 and 29, 2016. This activity brought together diverse decision makers, experts, practitioners, and community stakeholders, including representatives from academia, government, the private sector, foundations, and nonprofit organizations, to consider the results of years of investment, experimentation, and research in building resilience, take stock of these many initiatives and efforts, and share their experiences in building more resilient communities. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

This book argues for the need to rethink governance through the lens of 'resilience as self-governance'. Building on complexity-thinking, it contends that in the context of change and complex life, challenges are most efficiently dealt with, at the source, 'locally', to make 'the global' more responsive and sustainable. Resilience as self-governance is advanced as an overriding framework to explore its constitutive elements - identity, ‘good life’, local coping strategies and support infrastructures - which, when mobilized, can turn communities into ‘peoplehood’ in the face of adversity. It is argued that these communities of relations, self-organised and self-aware of their worth, is what makes them so resilient to crises, and what helps them to transform with change; and how they should be governed today. Central Eurasia, spanning from Belarus in the west, to Azerbaijan in the south and Kyrgyzstan in the east, provides fertile grounds for exploring how resilience works in practice in times of complex change. By immersing into centuries-long traditions and philosophy, local experiences of survival, and visions for change, this book shows that governability at any level requires a substantive 'local' input to make 'the global' more enduring and resilient in a complex adaptive world. This book will be of great value to students and scholars in the fields of Politics including Eurasian politics and the various aspects of Governance. Most of the chapters in this book were published as a special issue of Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

This book provides an accessible overview of how efforts to combat climate change and social inequalities should be tackled simultaneously. In the context of the climate emergency, the impacts of extreme events can already be felt around the world. The book centres on five case studies from the Global South, Latin America, Pacific Islands, Africa, and Asia with each one focused on climate justice, resilience, and community responses towards a just transition. The book will be an invaluable reference for advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in environmental studies, urban planning, geography, social science, international development, and disciplines that focus on the social dimensions of climate change.