As part of my commitment to research and knowledge production, I pursue questions and problems relevant to community resilience. Community resilience directly connects to my work in community activation because it focuses on the real-world problems that communities face, while preparing for and responding to disturbances. Surviving, thriving, and enhancing resilience in a complex world is the goal of just about any community.
I was a co-author on a recently published peer-reviewed article called, “Integrating subjective and objective dimensions of resilience in fire-prone landscapes“. In this paper, the co-authors discuss how “resilience” is defined by both “practical” characteristics and “human values”, which is based on Who is defining the values and How they seek to benefit.
The article was developed after all of the co-authors participated in an invited 3-day workshop in 2017 at the University of Montana titled, “Defining ecological and social resilience in fire-prone landscapes” and funded by the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP). Most importantly, the workshop and the writing process of the paper was highly collaborative–all co-authors contributed actively and evenly to the paper, and they represented diverse sectors–government, academic, and private. Such high collaboration from a diverse group does not often occur in co-authored papers.
A press release about the publication was released by the University of Montana.
Abstract of the article:
Resilience has become a common goal for science-based natural resource management, particularly in the context of changing climate and disturbance regimes. Integrating varying perspectives and definitions of resilience is a complex and often unrecognized challenge to applying resilience concepts to social–ecological systems (SESs) management. Using wildfire as an example, we develop a framework to expose and separate two important dimensions of resilience: the inherent properties that maintain structure, function, or states of an SES and the human perceptions of desirable or valued components of an SES. In doing so, the framework distinguishes between value-free and human-derived, value-explicit dimensions of resilience. Four archetypal scenarios highlight that ecological resilience and human values do not always align and that recognizing and anticipating potential misalignment is critical for developing effective management goals. Our framework clarifies existing resilience theory, connects literature across disciplines, and facilitates use of the resilience concept in research and land-management applications.
Citation of the article:
Higher P, A. Metcalf, C. Miller, B. Buma, D. McWethy, E. Metcalf, Z. Ratajczak, C. Nelson, B. Chaffin, R. Stedman, S. McCaffrey, T. Schoennagel, B. Harvey, S. Hood, C. Schultz, A. Black, J. Taggerty, R. Keane, M. Krawchuk, J. Kulig, R. Rafferty, A Virapongse (2019). Integrating subjective and objective dimensions of resilience in fire-prone landscapes. Bioscience 69 (5): 379-388, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz030
Photo: Workshop participant group at University of Montana, Missoula, MT