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dc.contributor.advisorVan Niekerk, D
dc.contributor.authorCoetzee, Christo
dc.date.accessioned2017-04-07T09:23:36Z
dc.date.available2017-04-07T09:23:36Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10394/21198
dc.descriptionPhD (Development and Management), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2016en_US
dc.description.abstractDisasters have affected human lives, livelihoods, infrastructure, biodiversity and linked socio-ecological systems since the beginning of time. These impacts have been amplified since the 1970s thereby causing society to consider pro-active approaches to reducing the threat posed by disasters. To this end, international organisations, national governments and academia have created and introduced a vast array of disaster reduction theories, concepts, models and policies to provide theoretical and practical tools for addressing disasters risk. A contemporary disaster risk management concept that has risen to prominence over the last decade is the concept of disaster resilience. However, despite its prominent position in contemporary disaster risk management discourse and practice, confusion still exists on what exactly resilience pertains to on a theoretical level, and how to go about building resilience in practice. The thesis makes the argument that resilience is often not well understood due to the mechanistic nature of most resilience theories, models and policies currently informing our understanding of the concept. This mechanistic approach of explaining disaster resilience often leads to a very linear and shallow understanding of the processes and elements that subsume disaster resilience building processes. In practice, the shallow understanding leads to a practical implementation of resilience building projects that are based upon “one size fits all” approaches which do not address the dynamic nature of resilience within different geographic contexts. The thesis contends that understanding and building disaster resilience is an infinitely more complex process than what is observable in the current discourse.To understand such complexity, the thesis introduces Complex Adaptive Systems Theory (CAST) as a possible new paradigm through which disaster resilience can be understood. CAST is an appropriate choice as it is specifically designed to understand complex human-environmentally linked processes such as disaster resilience. The theoretical discussion on CAST and its associated concepts is tested within the context of subsistence agriculture within the Southern African countries of Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique. The specific context was selected due to the large dependence of these countries upon subsistence agriculture for income and food security, and the subsequent need for improved resilience in the face of disaster risk. To gain a greater insight into the underlying dynamics that encompass resilience in the different country contexts, the thesis employed a secondary data analysis methodology on the existing data set collected on behalf of the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). A combined total of 1110 respondents formed part of the study, of which Mozambique represented 40.3% (N=447) of participants, Madagascar 30.4% (N=337) and Malawi 29.4% (N=326). The data collected from these respondents was scrutinised in greater depth through the application of correlation and descriptive statistical analysis. This statistical analysis gives insight into concepts of non-linearity, aggregation, emergent behaviour, feedback loops, adaptation and context-based responses and how the aid in explaining resilience within subsistence agriculture communities in the identified countries. The results of the analysis are presented in four research articles. Results from Research Article 1 focused upon establishing whether there were theoretical synergies between the concept of resilience and CAST. It was found that there are inherent similarities between the concept of resilience and CAST, which provide ample practical and theoretical contributions to the field of disaster risk studies. Article 2 explored the role of information feedback loops in stimulating interaction between internal and external system elements, and whether these interactions lead to complex emergent system behaviours such as disaster resilience with farming communities. The paper found that information feedback loops and interaction are key drivers for disaster resilient behaviour, as information feedback stimulates improved disaster recovery and coping capacity for subsistence farmers. Through the application of the systems concept of emergence, Article 3 attempted to illustrate how complex emergent behaviours such as disaster resilience at a macro systems level are created through the interaction between micro level system components. Results showed that the use of a combination of agricultural interventions, including small-scale irrigation systems, farmers' associative mechanisms, appropriate crop varieties, and cropping techniques at a micro systems level could lead to coping strategies and hazard avoidance strategies that contribute to the overall resilience of farming communities at a macro systems level. Article 4 explored the notion that emergent behaviours such as those discussed in Article 3 are often non-linear in nature. Results from the analysis of subsistence agriculture communities illustrated that community resilience profiles are uniquely different from context to context. This has implications for the theory and practice of disaster resilience, as it would mean that resilience and the building thereof could not be understood by means of one size fits all approaches, and that there should be a move towards more flexible and context specific resilience building tools and methodologies. The research showed that CAST is a useful tool for understanding resilience on two levels - theory and practice. On a theoretical level the study showed that CAST is an appropriate tool to explore disaster resilience, as it is ideally suited to provide insight into systems that are subject to constant change, learning and adaption. This capability of CAST is consistent with the operational definition of resilience presented in the thesis, and the contemporary thinking of disaster resilience as a process of “building back better” or “bouncing forward”. On a practical level the thesis showed that systems tools such as information feedback loops, emergent behaviour and non-linearity provide disaster scientists with a means to explore deeper dynamics and processes that underlie resilience behaviour in at-risk communities. To this end, information feedback loops aid our understanding of interactions that drive adaptive behaviour, emergence allows us to understand micro level systems interactions and how these interactions lead to resilience in different contexts, and finally, non-linearity places an emphasis upon resilience and the building thereof as something that should be treated as a flexible concept and interventions that should be tailor-made to each community. Importantly, the system tools identified in the thesis are inherently flexible, making them generalisable to all contexts. This is because systems tools aim to understand the process of resilience building, instead of providing an idealised version of what resilience should be. A CAST perspective on resilience accepts therefore that resilience profiles will differ from context to context, but that is crucial to understand the dynamics and underlying process that drive resilience building. The thesis also demonstrated that the CAST perspective on building disaster resilience is not only applicable to our theoretical understanding of resilience, but that it can make a contribution to understanding resilience as it pertains to different contexts and settings. As such it was shown that within the context of subsistence agriculture in Southern Africa, CAST could reveal the composition and extent of resilience profiles within different communities. Understanding the underlying dynamic associated with the resilience profiles of individual communities is crucial, as it would allow for more appropriate resilience building and development programmes to be implemented by local and international development agencies. The addition of CAST perspectives into resilience building projects in Southern African subsistence agriculture will also contribute to introducing the notion that building resilience is not a static outcome that can be achieved within a predetermined time scale. Instead, it should be treated as a dynamic process, independent of set time and funding schedules. This could have major implications for how governments and international donor agencies should go about formulating, funding, implementing and monitoring future agricultural resilience building and disaster risk reduction projects within the region. CAST implies that future resilience building endeavours should be more flexible in their implementation and funding procedures, and place greater emphasis upon the bottom-up formulation (community centred approaches) of resilience building in agricultural settings, rather than donor-government driven approaches that are often topdown in their implementation and understanding of community needs. Through the application of CAST tools it is apparent that a Complex Adaptive Systems paradigm of disaster resilience is useful, as it provides a means to focus upon the underlying drivers and dynamics associated with resilient behaviour. This is a departure from traditional paradigms of resilience which often spoke only to the capacities needed to build resilience in isolation. Introducing a Complex Adaptive Systems paradigm to our understanding of resilience is a recognition of the basic systems principle of “the whole is more than the sum of its parts," or there is more to understanding a system than merely understanding the individual componentsen_US
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherNorth-West University (South Africa) , Potchefstroom Campusen_US
dc.subjectResilienceen_US
dc.subjectComplex adaptive systems theoryen_US
dc.subjectInformation feedbacken_US
dc.subjectEmergent behaviouren_US
dc.subjectNon-linearityen_US
dc.titleTowards a complex adaptive systems paradigm of disaster resilience : a study of Southern African subsistence agriculture communitiesen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.description.thesistypeDoctoralen_US
dc.contributor.researchID12620394 - Van Niekerk, Dewald (Supervisor)


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