Essay 4 - Resilience - Dr Nick Spedding PDF

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Essay 4 – Resilience

51442329

Resilience: An evolutionary phase across fields and organisations The concept of resilience has evolved over time and been applied differently across geography. Initial studies of resilience focused on the individual level, but over time as studies advanced, the concept of scale was identified which led to the study of resilience in communities (Fleming & Ledogar, 2008). Additionally, the different factors that affect these communities across different scales (economic, social & environmental) have become of greater importance as they help us characterize how and what creates a resilient community. This short essay looks to compare and contrast the works of Raco & Street’s paper (2012) “Resilience planning, economic change and the politics of post-recession development in London and Hong Kong” and McManus et al. paper (2012) “Rural community and rural resilience: what is important to farmers in keeping their country towns alive?”.

Raco & Street’s paper (2012) looks at how resilience and recovery planning have become key areas of debate with regards to rapid economic growth in the 1990s and 2000s. Attention is brought to two interpretations of resilience, conservative and radical, and what the implications are for the politics of urban development (Raco & Street, 2012). The paper analyses and deconstructs the emergence of the politics and practices of resilience planning in global cities, using Hong Kong and London as a comparative study. The paper follows three themes, the concept of resilience; continuities and changes in planning agendas and what challenges and opportunities follow; and the emerging of politics of resilience and the implementation of conservative or radical policies. McManus et al. paper (2012) looks at the factors previously mentioned that affect resilience amongst communities - economic, social and environmental. The principal focus of the paper is on rural resilience, in particular what issues local farmers in two regions in Australia’s heartland consider to be most important in maintaining their local towns, after being subject to resilient occurring factors between 1976 and 2007. The paper gathers reliable amounts of data regarding the factors considered to be of greatest importance to analyse, which are required to be maintained to a high standard in order to conserve rural populations and services along with a strong local economy and environment. Both papers acknowledge the fundamental understanding and complexity of resilience, and how it has developed over time from being associated as ecological systems from a physical mind-set, to being “the transfer of an ecological term to other domains and applied in economic and social contexts, including rural environments” (McManus et al, 2012). Both papers agree with the characteristic of resilient systems, and how they are affected by ‘shocks’ which overall can leave negative or positive effects on the ecological system. Raco & Street’s paper (2012) has a more economical approach to resilience on a larger scale, as it focuses on the effects that the global economic recession has had on Hong Kong and London, and what the different resilient planning techniques that have been incorporated to deal with the ‘shocks’. On the other hand, McManus et al paper (2012) focuses on the social, environmental and economic factors of local communities in two regions of New South Wales, Australia - the regions of Lachlan and Northern Tablelands – and

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Essay 4 – Resilience

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looks at a range of aspects & shocks that could potentially affect the communities’ resilience. Although each paper focuses on different resilient factors at different scales, they both have similar understandings of the importance of economies/communities maintaining interaction with areas of high capital and economic activity. Raco & Street (2012) stress importance on the reliance of multiple sources of economic activity, and how they provide protection from external shocks that may affect the reliance of an economy - compared to regions that are over dependent on a smaller number of industries “where growth is widely spread and balanced between diverse sectors, resilience is strengthened…if economies rely on multiple sources of economic activity, they are more likely to be protected from exogenous shocks” (Raco & Street, 2012). Similarly, McManus et al (2012) agree that there is great importance for communities to maintain contact with hubs of high economic and social activity in order to prevent from decline, especially in rural regions like Lachlan and the Northern Tablelands of Australia – although the bounding of communities to such sparse rural areas is becoming less of a problem due to advances in technology, communications and transport “the traditional bonds that tied farmers to local rural service centres are weakening as improvements in communications free farm enterprises from reliance on ‘the local’” (McManus et al, 2012). Alternatively, when focusing on methodology, principle aims of each paper, and conclusions, the papers differ in such aspects. Firstly in terms of methodology, Raco & Street’s paper (2012) principally uses secondary data or assumptions regarding the resilient planning techniques used by Hong Kong and London - taking into account the scale of these case studies. McManus et al’s paper (2012) on the other hand uses primary sources of data collection, through interviews with local residents of the chosen study areas, which provides data sets and results that are somewhat easier to interpret and conclude upon. Secondly, the principle aims of each paper differ slightly, as Raco & Street (2012) focus on the economic aspects of resilience in their chosen locations, whilst McManus et al (2012) take into account more than just economic aspects (social & environmental influential factors). Which leads to the final point, Raco & Street (2012) concur with authors who believe that “resilience planning is becoming more significant in relation to economic development” – a more economical take on their results – whilst McManus et al conclude that there are more factors that need to be taken into account to explain such decline across communities “while some argue that economics are driving decline, others suggest that a sense of belonging and social participation can mitigate against such decline” (McManus et al, 2012). In conclusion, it has become clear that resilience and planning techniques across different scales of communities is a complicated concept, and whilst it may be a contested area of study, more academic fields are incorporating such theory to help identify and explain further components of resilience that could help improve upon current resilience planning techniques.

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Essay 4 – Resilience

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Bibliography Fleming, J., & Ledogar, R. J. (2008). Resilience, an Evolving Concept: A Review of Literature Relevant to Aboriginal Research. Pimatisiwin, 6(2), pp.7–23. Web: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2956753/ McManus, P., Walmsley, J., Argent, N., Baum, S., Bourke, L., Martin, J., Pritchard, B., Sorensen, T. (2012). Rural Community and Rural Resilience: What is important to farmers in keeping their country towns alive?. Journal of Rural Studies, 28, pp.20-29. Raco, M., & Street, E. (2012). Resilience Planning, Economic Change and The Politics of Post-recession Development in London and Hong Kong. Urban Studies Journal Limited, 49(5), pp.1065-1087.

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