This ecological approach to resilience has been used to inform understandings of social resilience. The notion of an organism in a biological sense is used as a metaphor to explain organizational structure (Adger, 2006; Cote & Nightingale, 2012; Walker & Cooper, 2011), and to illustrate the idea of the inter-dependency of different parts of
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an organisation (or community) which depend on one another, in ways that are determined by the nature of the operational environment. Folke et al. (2002) likewise link resilience to people and the changes in the environment they live in. Social scientists generally agree with the approach of the natural and physical scientists but tend to apply the idea of resilience to social issues such as public policy for example (MacKinnon & Derickson, 2013; Stokols, Lejano & Hipp, 2013). The analogies with ecological systems are inappropriate if used in isolation from an examination of an institution’s social roles, however, the ecological ideas of resilience can be adjusted and integrated with other conceptual tools and therefore applied to a particular social context.
There are criticisms of attempts to integrate and apply the ecological concept of resilience to the social setting of a community. Several authors (Carpenter, Walker, Anderies & Abel, 2001; Klein, Nicholls, Thomalla, 2003) disagree with this approach, in part because they believe the concept to be too imprecise. This as Ungar (2004, p.341) explains would be “inadequate to account for the diversity of people’s experiences of resilience” because individuals’ or groups’ encounters vary in different contexts. Other critiques on the use of the ecological approach to resilience in the social world point out that this approach focuses more on the individual (organism) (Runswick-Cole & Goodley, 2013; Ungar, 2004) and the environment; they are so focused on the individual organism they do not look at other risk factors or wider activities which can make something vulnerable, for example the destruction of the environment by mining operations. Some critics have gone so far as to question whether in terms of resilience “perhaps the social and psychological sciences should have created their
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own language, free from inherited meanings” (Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche & Pfefferbaum, 2008, p.128). On the other hand, it can be argued that no one owns the term ‘resilience’, and at the practical level, the concept of resilience has been researched and developed in a variety of fields.
Within the social sciences, resilience has also been defined in slightly different ways by different disciplines including developmental psychology, social work, and development studies (Adger, 2006; Chambers & Conway, 1991; Chenoweth & Stehlick, 2001; Kirmayer, Dandeneau, Marshall, Phillips & Williamson, 2011; Fromboise, Hoyt, Oliver & Whitbeck, 2006). Many of these include reference to ’adaptability’ when referring to how individuals or communities cope with problems they encounter and the relationship between the two terms is dealt with below. Many social science
disciplines such as psychology and social work have also developed their own yet similar definitions and seek to understand and apply the concept of resilience from their own perspectives. In this subsection these various definitions of community resilience are explored for the purpose of enabling a deeper understanding with reference to communities close to mining locations.
In social psychology, an ecological approach to resilience is applied and connects resilience to the psychological characteristics of individuals’ abilities to solve problems (Kirmayer, et al., 2011; Ungar, 2004). Developmental psychology and psychiatry were among the first to associate resilience to the personal characteristics of individuals. Psychology defines resilience in terms of a person’s personality and attitude in dealing with challenges in their lives. Studies on the resilience of youth in the face of adverse
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life events such as psychological dysfunction indicated that teenagers with a higher IQ, strong family support and close family monitoring and supervision developed a higher level of resilience (Masten, et al., 1999; Tiet, et al., 1998; Tiet, et al., 2001). Using these ecological approaches to resilience the emphasis is thus on how behaviours are shaped from the inside (Ungar, 2004), regardless of external influences such as parental support. Recent studies on lessons learned from stress and trauma demonstrate the significance of levels of resilience in these victims (Lacoviello & Charney, 2014; Makkawi, 2012). A recent review of the work of Wilson (2012) on ‘Community resilience and environmental transitions’ by Robinson and Carson (2015) highlighted the position of an integrative approach including ecological, engineering and adaptive resilience which contributes to individual resilience. In community psychology resilience is connected with a person’s sense of belonging to the community (Berkes & Ross, 2013; Chavis, Hogge, McMillan & Wandersman, 1986; Chavis & Wandersman, 1990; McMillan, 1996; Nystad, Spein & Ingstad, 2014; Sarason, 1974). Studies on community psychology found that community members identifying themselves through personal values such as religion and professional associations, belonged to more resilient communities.
Critiques of this social-psychological approach to resilience argue however that more emphasis needs to be placed on a person’s ability to cope, adapt, or organise resources when confronted with hardships, and social-psychological approaches tend to neglect certain groups such as the disabled (Hutcheon & Lashewicz, 2014). The use of an ecological view of resilience is challenged by the constructivist interpretation that defines resilience in relation to the cultural environment of individuals, families and
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the wider society (Ungar, 2004). Ungar (2008) further argues that resilience needs to be viewed in the context of the interactions of different factors such as the beliefs and values and other circumstances of a particular individual, a family and the community as a whole. The constructivist view defines resilience as an outcome of interactions among these various factors (Ebersohn, 2012; Hutcheon & Lashewicz, 2014).
Bottrell (2009) also argues that aspects of the social-psychological approach to resilience, such as the developmental and individual level of analyses, overlooks social inequalities. This argument is supported by the fact that policy approaches based on this understanding of resilience tend to overlook, for example, the mentally ill, or as mentioned people with disabilities (Runswick-Cole & Goodley, 2012) or the elderly (Wild, Wiles & Allen, 2011). That is groups whose needs differ from normative wider society. With reference to the abovementioned groups there is little consideration given to material resources and networks that can contribute positively by addressing the specific needs of these people (Runswick-Cole & Goodley, 2012).
In contrast to the social-psychological approach to resilience, definitions from within social work derive from the theories and frameworks that position individuals within a community with complex dynamic characteristics and their interactions are in response to risk factors such as socio-economic status, social and health problems and behavioural incompetence (Fraser, Galinsky, & Richman, 1999; Chenoweth & Stehlik, 2001). These definitions focus on the individual interacting with all other aspects of the social world such as available services and policies that regulate the provision of these services. This definition is further emphasised by The Canadian Centre for Community
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Renewal which defines resilience as “the intentional action to enhance the personal and collective capacity of its citizens and institutions to respond to and influence the course of social and economic change” (as cited in Berkes & Ross, 2013, p.6). The intentional action here concerns the policies and plans formulated by the stakeholders to achieve tangible results such as the effective and efficient delivery of services in the community. This approach is of particular relevance to this research.
This more collective view towards community resilience is further elaborated as “the capacity of community members to engage in projects of coordinated action within the context of their community despite events and structures that constrain such projects”
(Brown and Kulig, 1996, p.43). Recent resilience literature places greater emphasis on the positive impact of taking a more collective approach in understanding members’ capacity to building community resilience (Berkes & Ross, 2013; Lyon & Parkins, 2013; Poortinga, 2012; Shaw & Maythorne, 2013). This collective view relates resilience closely to the adaptation aspect of the ecological perspective as outlined above.
Building on this approach, community resilience can then be viewed as the development and engagement of existing resources in a community that is challenged by unpredictable changes (Magis, 2007). Folke et al., (2002) also emphasise the dynamic and unpredictable: one cannot be sure of what can take place in a community within a given period and resilience is important to ensure that this uncertainty can be turned around if there are to be significant plans to create opportunities to enable the people to achieve a higher level of community development. Blishen, Lockhart, Craib and Lockhart (1979) and Bowles and Cook (1981) developed a schema for understanding how
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communities creatively cope with external influences. In using the case of health, Blishen et al. (1979) identified three dimensions of community health that can be influenced by externally driven transformations:
i. social vitality which focuses on patterns of social behaviour representative of community health;
ii. economic vitality, the level of economic independence of regional, provincial or national economy; and,
iii. political efficacy which is concerned with how the mentioned dimensions associate with mobilizations of political power and its processes.
They demonstrated the ways in which community resilience along these dimensions was affected among communities in different contexts impacted by forestry, fishing, and mining projects. A predictive study on social impacts in Broken Hill Mine in Australia, also found these three dimensions to be useful (Ross & McGee, 2006), with the first two dimensions being critical to shaping the resilience of the local community to deal with the downsizing of the mine, while the third one assisted in mobilizing the people’s views on possible community transformation pathways.
These dimensions of community transformation appear to have helped the community at Broken Hill to recover from the multiple stresses that came with downsizing of the mine, together with the reconstruction of their relationships with other stakeholders (Ross & McGee, 2006). The interactions with other stakeholders are of paramount importance due to the fact that they are part of the whole operational system, and all groups have to co-function for the sake of the survival or continuity of the community. Again, this is of relevance to the situation experienced by mine-impacted communities in Papua New Guinea which is the focus of this research.
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The strength and vitality of the community along social and economic lines at Broken Hill clearly demonstrates how this can affect their ability to absorb the rapidly changing situation and create opportunities to benefit their community in the longer- term. Absorption refers to the manner in which communities absorb stress or distress. In this stage the community is confronted with a problem or faced with a dilemma and may not know how to deal with the new situation (Kimhi & Eshel, 2009; Kimhi & Shamai, 2004). It can also represent situations where a community reacts and adapts to a disturbance brought upon by an activity such as mining and has to transform. Challenges encountered by a community can be from both within and outside the locality; however, the stressors are more often external. The resilience of a community is influenced by “globalisation and transitional pathways” (Wilson, 2012, p. 1218), which consequently affect national policies, which then trickle down to the delivery of services (including health) to the communities. Studies on international policies such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and health policies in developing countries illustrate there is often limited focus on local needs (Easterly, 2009; Clemens, Kenny, & Moss, 2007). A more resilient community will naturally find it easier to absorb outside stressors than a less resilient community. This approach then views the community as an entity with existing features and assets but with an unpredictable future (Davis & Franks, 2011; Folke et al., 2002).
Communities throughout the world are regularly confronted with a broad array of challenges instigated by factors beyond their control. In Australia for example, a literature review of resilience in rural communities discovered these communities are
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challenged by political change, economic downturn and policy changes (McIntosh et al, 2008). Other communities such as the war torn ones in Lebanon showed that personal traits and human relations were crucial for those coping with the stress of violent conflict to recover (Kimhi & Shamai, 2004).
Resilient communities internalise the situation on hand, adapt to it, and then develop strategies to resist the challenges they encounter. Challenges are inevitable but their impact depends on the resilience of such communities to deal with their specific issues.
Resilience can also be closely linked, conceptually, to the original definition of sustainable livelihood security which is defined as:
adequate stocks and flows of food and cash to meet basic needs. Security refers to secure ownership of, or access to, resources and income-earning activities, including reserves and assets to offset risk, ease shocks and meet contingencies. Sustainable refers to the maintenance or enhancement of resource productivity on a long-term basis. A household may be enabled to gain sustainable livelihood security in many ways - through ownership of land, livestock or trees; rights to grazing, fishing, hunting or gathering; through stable employment with adequate remuneration; or through varied repertoires of activities (Chambers & Conway,1991, p.5).
This definition covers a broad array of livelihood options with the understanding that it is about communities being able to maintain themselves in a consistent fashion. This definition covers the security of individuals, households (or families) and the community as a whole. The concept of sustainable livelihoods is further emphasised by other authors (Bacud, Cardenas & Velasco, 2014; Chen, Shivakoti, Zhu & Maddox, 2012; Sseguya, Mazur, & Masinde, 2009) specifically the experiential application of this
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concept and its impact on people. Some recent studies (Bacud, Cardenas & Velasco, 2014; Hanazaki, Berkes, Seixas & Peroni, 2013) have also illustrated the connections between a sustainable livelihoods approach and the resilience of people and communities. This thinking also underpins this thesis.
The first half of the above definition clearly links to the earlier discussion of resilience. Development, in this context, is defined as “long-term transformation, improvement and continuous betterment of the livelihoods of people” (Cronje and Chenga, 2009, p.417) and is directly related to resilience as it focuses on how a community can cope with and recover from the negative impacts of different shocks or transformations. Importantly, from an operational research perspective, the sustainable livelihood framework is derived from the original work of Chambers and Conway (1991), however it was Scoones (1998, 2009), who further developed the idea of ‘assets’ (or capitals), which provides a basis for assessing the strength of different aspects of a community, and a parallel can be drawn here with the idea of community capitals (Aldrich, 2012; Poortinga, 2012; Ungar, 2011) as used in this thesis.
This view of sustainable livelihoods and community resilience provides a direct link to the discourse of sustainability typically employed by mining companies over the past two decades. Most mining industry definitions of sustainability, in relation to affected communities, view it as the realization of a net benefit, both during and beyond mine closure. It is also believed that the fostering of “sustainable mining communities and the role of community consultation and capacity building” (Veiga, Scoble and McAllister, 2001, p.191) is important to the industry. There is a large body of work (for example,
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Bridge, 1999; Esteves & Vanclay, 2009; Nelsen, Scoble & Ostry, 2010; Schmidt, Hemingway, & Bellefeuille, 2012; Tse, Ran, Huang & Zhu, 2013) on the importance of building community capacity by strengthening the utilisation of community capitals to achieve community resilience (see Section 4.3). The mining industry often acknowledges the importance of building community capacity to produce more sustainable outcomes for these communities, and as will be discussed below, most of the companies aim to strengthen community capitals, and in part do so by trying to facilitate better and more effective service delivery in impacted communities. Plummer and Armitage (2007) argue however that a lack of partnership in the way the resources are managed to build community capitals can lead to less favourable results. Working in partnership successfully is dependent on the nature of the stakeholders and partnerships formed to support communities. The literature suggests that partnerships in community development need to include both internal and external organisations if resilient communities are to be built (Steiner & Atterton, 2014).
Given the above, Adger (2006) argues the importance of taking an integrated and holistic perspective when seeking to understand the practical applications of community resilience. This idea is further supported and developed by practitioners, researchers, and scholars who redefine resilience and apply it to their individual contexts, research or thinking. However, there can be challenges according to Gallopin (2006) in trying to understand the concept across different disciplines. Several authors like Folke et al. (2002), O’Brian et al. (2009), Norris, et al. (2008) and Adger (2000) concur that an inter-disciplinary approach is required to explain resilience because it is
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such a complex concept that cannot be defined in isolation from other interrelated concepts.