Climate Change and Adaptive Innovation

A Model for Social Work Practice

Sunil D. Santha

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780429515149
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Biological Sciences

The world is witnessing climate change. As responsible citizens of planet earth, we can actively participate in the co-creation of actionable knowledge and solutions. There may not be a single and linear pathway to adaptation anymore. This book explores multiple and iterative pathways of adapting to climate change and its impacts.

Climate Change and Adaptive Innovation introduces an adaptive innovation model that has its premise on core values of justice, care and solidarity. Navigating collectively through shared conversations and dialogic processes, this model showcases how we could embark on an enduring journey where diverse actors could collaboratively make informed choices and take necessary actions to enhance the safety and security of their lived environment. Rooted in action research, it is envisaged that this model could enable us to facilitate the designing and implementation of people-centred ethical adaptation projects.

This book will be of interest to social workers, social scientists and development practitioners who are engaged in the field of climate justice, adaptation, social innovation and sustainable livelihoods. Social work educators and students will certainly draw inspiration from the stories that are shared in this book. It will further motivate many transdisciplinary professionals to engage with action research as a method of innovation, reflection and practice

1 Introduction

As I am writing the prelude for this book, more than 11,000 scientists have co-signed a letter in a reputed journal demanding urgent and necessary action on climate change. I believe that this may be one of the largest gathering of scientists who are explicitly demanding for immediate and proactive climate action. So far, nation states have failed to reduce global carbon emissions to the desired levels and much time has already been wasted in denying climate change. Nevertheless, global surface temperatures are rising, and the increase seems to be at a faster rate than what our scientists had predicted two decades ago. We are witnessing disruptions in weather patterns accompanied by other daunting consequences impacting the balance of diverse ecosystems. The state of oceans, forests, biodiversity, food, water and livelihood security and ultimately our ability to sustain a safe and secure life are in peril.

The media has been reporting extreme environmental events across different parts of the world. Climate models have proved that rising global temperatures and heat waves have accelerated the melting of glaciers at a rate that was not anticipated earlier. In the last few years, many cities across the world have been witnessing higher surface temperatures. Water scarcity in several dryland regions of the world is becoming a new normal. Many countries in Asia and Africa are considerably affected by drought, where farmers are being forced to abandon dying crops; herders are selling their livestock in distress; and women and children are struggling to find enough water to survive. There has been an increase in the loss of human and non-human lives due to extreme weather events. The severe drought in Zimbabwe has been killing elephants and other wildlife.

With rising temperatures, there has also been an increase in the frequency and intensity of cyclonic storms, sea surges and hurricanes. Recently, Mozambique and the Bahamas were devastated by severe cyclonic storms. While I am penning down these opening paragraphs, cyclone Bulbul is fast brewing in the Bay of Bengal. This will be the eighth cyclone that India will be witnessing this year and it will bypass a previous three-decade record of having the maximum number of cyclones in a year. The year 2018 also witnessed seven major cyclones. Further, the cyclone Fani that originated in the Bay of Bengal was one of the strongest storms that the country witnessed in the past 20 years. Fragile ecosystems such as the Chilika Lake and the livelihoods of many poor people dependent on the lake were severely destroyed by the cyclone. The life and livelihood security of several small island communities such as people in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Sundarbans and Lakshadweep region were affected by a series of extreme weather events.

Environmental and humanitarian activists argue that those who contributed least to the wicked problem of climate change are suffering the most. According to them, the world will be staring at a crisis of addressing the basic needs of millions of climate refugees or climate migrants in the coming years. By the year 2050, countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America alone could witness the number of climate migrants to rise up to 143 million (Rigaud et al., 2018). Developed nations are also not free from such challenges. Media reports show that certain coastal towns in United States and Britain are already struggling to relocate communities affected by rising water levels, flooding and submergence of large stretches of land (Davenport and Robertson, 2016; Wall, 2019). And these reports caution us that this is just the beginning. There are other exigencies too. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), for instance, has warned that one of the significant impacts of climate change is going to be unemployment (ILO, 2019). And most of the affected people are going to be the poor and marginalised segments of the population. I commenced the writing of this book with the realisation that we, as social workers and development practitioners could play an important role in enabling vulnerable populations to effectually respond to climate change and co-create opportunities for sustainable development.

The aim of this book is to introduce and elaborate a community-based innovation model for climate change adaptation. I refer to the model as ‘adaptive innovation’, which has its premise on the core values of justice, care and solidarity. It aims at vulnerability reduction and strengthening the adaptive capacities of community actors in complex social–ecological systems. This model emphasises on people-centred processes by which local community actors collectively can analyse their own situations in the context of social and ecological transitions; forge constructive partnership with other relevant actors to dialogue, ideate and develop working models; and implement and critically observe, reflect and validate their adaptive strategies to the emergent contexts. Navigating collectively through shared conversations and dialogic processes, we could embark on an enduring journey where diverse actors would mutually learn, innovate and make informed choices to enhance the safety and security of their lived environment. Rooted in action research, it is envisaged that the adaptive innovation model could enable us practitioners to facilitate the designing and implementation of people-centred ethical adaptation projects.

The idea of writing such a book had its genesis from my experiences of working with marginalised rural communities in drought affected regions of Andhra Pradesh in India. Later as I travelled across the country, I realised that the vulnerabilities of local communities to climate change and extreme natural hazard events are poignant and they all share similar narratives of struggle and hope. Interactions with practitioners in the field, social work educators and students also showcased a need for elaborating a people-centred practice-based model to stimulate social innovations in climate change adaptation. This book has also drawn substantial inspirations from Gandhian, Feminist and Systems perspectives; and lays its premise on an ethical standpoint of adaptation that is embedded with values of justice, care and solidarity.

Mahatma Gandhi believed in a truthful and non-violent way of life. He believed that human beings should not cause violence to other sentient beings in this earth. I once happened to read about an event in the life of Gandhiji that very much shaped my thinking on sustainability as well. One night, a person in Gandhiji’s ashram had plucked large number of leaves beyond the quantity that was required. Such a careless approach of dealing with nature pained Gandhiji. According to him, trees were also living beings like humans. And he felt very bad that the leaves were plucked during the resting time of plants and that too beyond what was needed. Gandhiji’s perspective of care always insisted that humans nurture a ‘living bond’ with rest of the non-human world (Gandhi, 1961, p. 303). Gandhiji’s celebrated and often-quoted statement that the earth has enough to satisfy the need of all the people, but not for satisfying the greed of some has become very relevant in the context of global warming and climate change.

Gandhiji’s philosophy of Sarvodaya is based on the principle of well-being of all human as well as other sentient beings. My initial efforts to understand social–ecological systems drew inspiration from similar Gandhian worldviews. He believed in the unity and oneness of all life and its interconnectedness. Many spiritually oriented cultures across the world have alerted us to the significance of this systemic interconnectedness. In his persistent endeavour to hold on to truth (Satyagraha), Gandhiji continuously strived to apply his principles in practice, reflect and evolve from these experiences. This approach was his pathway to self-realisation. He strongly believed that non-violence in its true sense has the ultimate solution to any problems affecting this world. Gandhiji envisaged a non-violent economic order based on equality and justice. His notion of solidarity was guided by selfless-service, cooperation and trusteeship. And he believed in dialogic practice that is embedded in learning-by-doing, truthfulness, mutual respect and love. Such a way of life requires mindful engagement, care and compassion with the environment, economy and the spiritual self (Kumarappa, 1957).

My fieldwork experiences and interactions with diverse rural communities has revealed to me the immense significance of local knowledge systems. Community actors are custodians of certain knowledge forms, which enable them to live meaningfully in their local environment, sustain their culture and practice their livelihoods. I also observed that local community actors in the villages and smaller towns often uphold a larger, interconnected systems view of life. They also have an excellent skill in articulating and linking the everyday moments in their life to the larger cosmos. We could see that their random expressions will cover different disciplinary but surprisingly unified or interlinked biological, ecological, social, economic, political, cognitive, philosophical, mythological and spiritual worldviews. Their conversations often do reflect the dynamic and non-linear nature of their relationship with humans and non-humans, their obligations to their ancestors and future generations and to the complex web of life in which all of us belong to. To some extent, they are aware of the larger system of life in which they and us are part, and at the same time they seem to be embedded in their everyday struggles, relationships and responsibilities.

I have observed that for many vulnerable groups, local knowledge is their primary resource to forecast and cope with a natural hazard event. However, in practice there are multiple dominating knowledge systems, and the ‘local’ is often represented as ‘tacit, unscientific and hidden’ in the mainstream notions of adaptation. Moreover, the romanticised and functionalist views of local knowledge have its own limitations to unlock the lived realities and aspirations of marginalised and subjugated actors. Further, the complexities involved in addressing a wicked problem like climate change forced me to explore other alternatives of recognising and representing the knowledge of subjugated actors. I discovered that the feminist perspectives of situated knowledge were extremely helpful in designing these alternative pathways. The feminist perspectives that recognise the intersectional, plural and dynamic nature of knowledge systems demands us to be attentive to the contexts of our practice. At a far deeper level, the feminist awareness is based on each actor’s experiential knowledge that all life is connected, and both individuals and societies are located within the cyclical processes of nature (Spretnak and Capra, 1984). Such an awareness also finds meaning in nurturing relationships of care embedded in trust and solidarity. Practice based on this awareness would entail us to have shared conversations and dialogic interactions as potential adaptation pathways.

Climate change is a systemic problem and therefore to adapt, we need to look out for systemic solutions. It requires a systemic understanding of the social–ecological context, its dynamics and capabilities to act up on this knowledge. There may not be a single and linear pathway to adaptation anymore. We need to explore multiple and plural pathways. We need to recognise the value of local knowledge, the subjective experiences and situated practices of community actors in collaboratively creating a meaningful synergy out of interconnected, dynamic and complex social–ecological systems. Such a frame of practice requires forging partnerships that recognise and value local needs, aspirations and knowledge of vulnerable groups as the primary base for designing and implementing adaptation projects. My experiences show that action research has tremendous potential to address complex problems at the grassroots level. As committed social workers and as responsible citizens of planet earth, we can actively participate in the co-creation of actionable knowledge and solutions. Such an approach also provides us opportunities to become self-aware and innovatively engage with complex problems of the world.

Enabling vulnerable groups to adapt effectively to variations and uncertainties in the natural environment gains prime importance in our everyday pursuit of social justice, human well-being and empowerment. There is need for us social workers to be critically alert and responsive to the major drifts in climate change adaptation and emergent livelihoods. At the same time, we have to equip ourselves with innovative methodologies in facilitating people-centred adaptation projects. Though the literature has widely discussed the roles that social workers could play as transactional agents in strengthening the adaptive capacities of vulnerable groups, the practice dimensions of these roles are sparsely dealt with. In this book, I attempt to showcase how action research as an approach can be used to bring about transformative change as well as offer immense possibilities for theorisation, co-creation and collaborative learning. The planning and practice of adaptation requires constant attention and reflection on what is being done, what is emerging and what iterations have to be done to move ahead with our actions. The adaptive innovation model that is presented in this book is a step towards this direction. Each phase of innovation can be seen as a process of discovering new ways of participation, co-creation and embedded learning. I am optimistic that the application of this model in specific contexts could demonstrate how diverse adaptation strategies can be iteratively designed taking into account the localised practices, policy frameworks and the relations of power within which they are structured.

The adaptive innovation model is based on certain conceptual foundations. The next chapter of this book introduces some of these key concepts and their interrelationships. It describes the nature of social–ecological systems, their complexities and dynamics in the context of climate change. It also elaborates on the need to define and locate the community as a critical participant actor in climate change adaptation. A larger premise that this book employs towards developing the adaptive innovation model is situated knowledge. Chapter 2 also elucidates the characteristics of situated knowledge in the everyday social encounters of community actors and its relevance in unearthing differentiated strategies of practice. Nevertheless, these practices are also linked to the nature of ideas, imagination, knowledge and institutions that co-exist and emerge in the adaptation landscape. Further, this chapter briefly explains the suitability of action research in developing people-centred climate change adaptation strategies. It also discusses how innovation platforms can be developed as an appropriate institutional medium for facilitating collective action.

Chapter 3 provides an overview of the whole adaptive innovation model. The landscape of adaptive innovation is elucidated by describing the values guiding ethical adaptation, its six practice phases, the embedded cycle of reflective practice and the significance of analysing actor interfaces in adaptation. To begin with, Chapter 3 briefly narrates the values that could guide ethical adaptation, namely climate justice, ethics of care and solidarity. It further presents the six phases of adaptive innovation. This chapter also explains why these phases have to be embedded within the iterative cycles of reflection-for-action, reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. It also highlights why it is important to analyse the actor interfaces in adaptation to critically engage with the adaptation process and at the same time address the needs of the most vulnerable and subjugated actors.

Chapter 4 elaborates on the important values guiding ethical adaptation to climate change. All adaptation decisions and actions taken could have implications in terms of intersectional, intergenerational and interspecies dimensions. It is in these contexts the adaptive innovation model envisages the presence of three critical elements, namely climate justice, ethics of care and solidarity. Ensuring fairness in response to climate change involves both procedural and distributive justice, where representation of vulnerable groups and recognition of their needs and voices becomes crucial. However, the notion of justice alone would not help in recognising the grounded experiences of marginalised actors to locate and reduce vulnerabilities. This chapter therefore deliberates on the need for an ethics of care and solidarity perspectives as well. Adaptive innovation thus could be understood as a process of transformative change that interweaves diverse pathways of caring solidarity along with the pursuit of justice.

Adaptive innovation is an iterative and reflective process involving diverse actors who are engaged in an interactive frame of analysis, ideation and practice. Chapter 5 of this book explains in detail the six phases of the adaptive innovation model. The six phases are Situational Analysis, Micro-mobilisation, Dialogic Ideation, Action Framing, Piloting and Emergence. The importance of scoping reviews, participatory mapping and analysis of drivers and barriers in situational analysis is explained. The process of micro-mobilisation is narrated with emphasis on shared visioning, participatory risk and vulnerability analysis and formation of innovation platforms. It is envisaged that the members of the innovation platform would engage in dialogic ideation and action framing to imagine diverse pathways of change and build appropriate working models respectively. These models are further piloted for feasibility and scaling up. However, the final phase of emergence is very crucial in adaptive innovation. It highlights those novel and creative phenomena that could arise from our adaptation efforts or else it could represent patterns underlying the anticipated and unintended consequences of our action.

Chapter 6 deliberates upon the various methods of inquiry and practice that could be followed in each of the adaptive innovation phases. Rooted in action research, it illustrates the diverse methods of interaction and data collection techniques that could facilitate ideation, decision-making and collective action in the adaptive innovation processes. Some of these methods that are discussed in this chapter include face-to-face interfaces, historical, visual and participatory narratives and other reflective data sources. Face-to-face interfaces could be different types of interviews, while oral histories could be an enriching source for historical insights and local knowledge. This chapter also briefs on some of the relevant participatory learning and action techniques. The use of photovoice, storytelling, brainstorming workshops, focus groups, social simulations, design charrettes and participatory modelling are also discussed.

Chapter 7 explains the context, method and practice of analysing actor interfaces in adaptive innovation and its embeddedness with reflective practice. It illustrates how the actor interface analysis can be looked up on as a suitable analytical frame to reflect upon crucial social encounte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Stories from the field
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Locating climate change adaptation
• 3. The landscape of adaptive innovation
• 4. Ethical adaptation to climate change
• 5. Adaptive innovation phases
• 6. Methods of inquiry and practice
• 7. Actor interface analysis and reflective practice
• 8. Concluding reflections
• Glossary
• Index