Rural Communities: opportunity to capitalise on the ‘resilience’ theme?
Resilience is the theme of the moment. From ‘Fiery Spirits’ to ‘Transition Towns’ activists, people in communities everywhere are finding powerful motivation in building local resilience. The London think-tanks are taking the ‘resilience’ agenda on, too. The IPPR think tank is busying itself with a Commission on National Security. Demos has just published ‘Resilient Nation’ by Charlie Edwards. Even the ‘Foreign Policy’ journal carries an article by Jamais Cascio proposing ‘resilience’ as ‘the next big thing’.
The up-take of ‘resilience’ in policy-making circles is emerging as a response to a string of shocks in recent years: 9/11, the Asian tsunami, Katrina, the London bombings, the 2007 floods and so on. The UK government has passed the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 making it mandatory for public services and other ‘cooperating bodies’ to put in place emergency plans against threats, hazards and major accidents. But emergency planning is not the same thing as creating genuine resilience - certainly as community activists would understand the term.
IFF has been exploring this territory for some time with policy makers, not least in addressing the psychological impact of crisis events. We have also encouraged understanding of the systemic nature of both risk and resilience, for example through playing our ‘World Game’. Playing the game helps people to realise that a shock in any one part of the system will trigger consequences elsewhere.
We recently ran the unfolding scenario of a pandemic flu outbreak through the world game, including with some of the people now responsible for putting contingency plans into practice. The game led to some fascinating observations with the policy community about emergency planning and resilience.
I am writing this blog to invite other ‘Fiery Spirits’ into that conversation. In particular, we see a possible tactical opportunity for rural communities and the Carnegie ‘petal model’ approach.
Here are some of the themes arising from our engagement with policy makers.
‘The Resilience Buffer’: Most of our central infrastructural systems are already running in failure mode. A small glitch in any one of them can rapidly trigger failure across the board. For example, our pandemic simulation showed how quickly core services can buckle if some of the worst-case scenarios unfold this coming winter. Even the power of Tesco might have difficulty getting food distributed if there are fuel shortages or driver illnesses. IOur conventional ways of running businesses and public services rely on tight, ‘just in time’ deliveries with little margin for error. Resilience requires spare capacity – which we might call the ‘resilience buffer’. We’ve eaten into this buffer by converting it into profit or by pushing ‘efficiency savings’ in public services to their limit. We conclude that we need to actively create ‘Resilience Buffers’ in communities (and particularly in cities, which our analysis shows are particularly vulnerable). Rural communities could take a lead in arguing for the role of rural in creating ‘resilience buffer’.
Resilience as Learning: In emergency planning, ‘resilience’ is often interpreted as attempting to maintain a ‘skeleton service’ - a ’powering down’ in all systems - pending the passing of the crisis. But that way of thinking and planning can be too static as a crisis unfolds over time. In our pandemic example shortages and rationing (food, energy, medication) appear on the crisis management agenda early on. But then later the longer term issues of sewage treatment, refuse disposal and other aspects of the waste cycles in a community become more prominent. Later still more fundamental issues arise about the water supply, We conclude resilience planning must have at its heart an ability to learn and adapt to circumstances as they evolve – and central government’s job is to listen to local feedback, not to impose more centralised control . The more normal services break down, the greater the need for local diversity and improvisation.
Local Autonomy: We know that communities already have in-built ‘resilience’ that becomes evident when crises come - for example, the community spirit generated when neighbours looked after each other after the floods of 2007. We know from our work on the psychological impact of disasters that this capacity to help each other is essential for maintaining psychological health. We also know that when complex systems encounter shocks they tend to fragment: in other words, central control and direction begins to disappear and localities are left with greater responsibility to respond at a local level. However, existing pandemic planning emphasises coordination from the centre (national government, or even international agencies), requiring consistency of response across jurisdictions (in order to maintain control and have all agencies ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’). The tension is that this approach suppresses local diversity (a source of resilience) and local resourcefulness (because it generates dependency on central agencies) – both of which will become central as the crisis plays out over time. This is also one of the central messages of the Resilient Nation report, which cites eg Farm Crisis Network and the South West ACRE Network of rural community councils as examples of good practice.
Bounce Back or Transform?: A critical part of contingency planning, and the ongoing management of a crisis, is to plan for eventual recovery. That long term perspective helps to shape choices even in the early stages of a crisis. The growing literature on resilience reveals a divide between those who see resilience as the ability to ‘bounce back’ and others who see it fundamentally as a process of learning and adaptation to changed circumstances. ‘Bouncing back’ implies a capacity to absorb shocks and challenges to the system and recover to normal operations as quickly and painlessly as possible. That is essentially the mindset with which governing authorities are approaching the financial crisis: ‘repair and continue’. But given the fragility of many of our systems, we can also expect that what ‘recovers’ can be very different from what went before. Indeed, the moment of crisis can be an opportunity for radical innovators – so long as they are ready to seize the moment. The philosophy that ‘a crisis is a terrible thing to waste’ suggests that sound, long term resilience planning would include a portfolio of options for more radical innovation – for example advancing the models for viable rural communities advanced in the fiery spirits community.
Carnegie’s Opportunity
These thoughts suggest that the rural community of practice may be well placed to take advantage of the present interest in resilience:
1) The petal model is clearly future-focussed and systemic and provides a model of both resilience and transformation. Might we be able to use the growing interest in local community resilience as part of emergency preparedness to introduce the petal model into community conversation more explicitly as a useful prompt for conversations linking the present and the future, the local and the national?
2) Much of the discussion about improving the quality and access to public services in rural areas has been predicated on notions of equity and social justice. Might we not be able to add a further dimension to that dialogue with central and local government today based on the notion of the ‘resilience buffer’? After all, resilience planning (as for the flu pandemic) is highlighting urban centres’ reliance on community hinterlands and the greater security and flexibility in distributed networks of resources. Can we play the resilience card?
3) Finally, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is of more than passing academic interest. The flu pandemic continues to unfold and may take on a more virulent form later in the year, disrupting normal patterns for many months. The energy infrastructure is likewise far from stable. There are plenty of other shocks to the system that can be anticipated. Are we really confident that our existing community resilience planning is adequate for the challenges ahead?
Is this a theme worth developing in the fiery spirits community?
The up-take of ‘resilience’ in policy-making circles is emerging as a response to a string of shocks in recent years: 9/11, the Asian tsunami, Katrina, the London bombings, the 2007 floods and so on. The UK government has passed the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 making it mandatory for public services and other ‘cooperating bodies’ to put in place emergency plans against threats, hazards and major accidents. But emergency planning is not the same thing as creating genuine resilience - certainly as community activists would understand the term.
IFF has been exploring this territory for some time with policy makers, not least in addressing the psychological impact of crisis events. We have also encouraged understanding of the systemic nature of both risk and resilience, for example through playing our ‘World Game’. Playing the game helps people to realise that a shock in any one part of the system will trigger consequences elsewhere.
We recently ran the unfolding scenario of a pandemic flu outbreak through the world game, including with some of the people now responsible for putting contingency plans into practice. The game led to some fascinating observations with the policy community about emergency planning and resilience.
I am writing this blog to invite other ‘Fiery Spirits’ into that conversation. In particular, we see a possible tactical opportunity for rural communities and the Carnegie ‘petal model’ approach.
Here are some of the themes arising from our engagement with policy makers.
‘The Resilience Buffer’: Most of our central infrastructural systems are already running in failure mode. A small glitch in any one of them can rapidly trigger failure across the board. For example, our pandemic simulation showed how quickly core services can buckle if some of the worst-case scenarios unfold this coming winter. Even the power of Tesco might have difficulty getting food distributed if there are fuel shortages or driver illnesses. IOur conventional ways of running businesses and public services rely on tight, ‘just in time’ deliveries with little margin for error. Resilience requires spare capacity – which we might call the ‘resilience buffer’. We’ve eaten into this buffer by converting it into profit or by pushing ‘efficiency savings’ in public services to their limit. We conclude that we need to actively create ‘Resilience Buffers’ in communities (and particularly in cities, which our analysis shows are particularly vulnerable). Rural communities could take a lead in arguing for the role of rural in creating ‘resilience buffer’.
Resilience as Learning: In emergency planning, ‘resilience’ is often interpreted as attempting to maintain a ‘skeleton service’ - a ’powering down’ in all systems - pending the passing of the crisis. But that way of thinking and planning can be too static as a crisis unfolds over time. In our pandemic example shortages and rationing (food, energy, medication) appear on the crisis management agenda early on. But then later the longer term issues of sewage treatment, refuse disposal and other aspects of the waste cycles in a community become more prominent. Later still more fundamental issues arise about the water supply, We conclude resilience planning must have at its heart an ability to learn and adapt to circumstances as they evolve – and central government’s job is to listen to local feedback, not to impose more centralised control . The more normal services break down, the greater the need for local diversity and improvisation.
Local Autonomy: We know that communities already have in-built ‘resilience’ that becomes evident when crises come - for example, the community spirit generated when neighbours looked after each other after the floods of 2007. We know from our work on the psychological impact of disasters that this capacity to help each other is essential for maintaining psychological health. We also know that when complex systems encounter shocks they tend to fragment: in other words, central control and direction begins to disappear and localities are left with greater responsibility to respond at a local level. However, existing pandemic planning emphasises coordination from the centre (national government, or even international agencies), requiring consistency of response across jurisdictions (in order to maintain control and have all agencies ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’). The tension is that this approach suppresses local diversity (a source of resilience) and local resourcefulness (because it generates dependency on central agencies) – both of which will become central as the crisis plays out over time. This is also one of the central messages of the Resilient Nation report, which cites eg Farm Crisis Network and the South West ACRE Network of rural community councils as examples of good practice.
Bounce Back or Transform?: A critical part of contingency planning, and the ongoing management of a crisis, is to plan for eventual recovery. That long term perspective helps to shape choices even in the early stages of a crisis. The growing literature on resilience reveals a divide between those who see resilience as the ability to ‘bounce back’ and others who see it fundamentally as a process of learning and adaptation to changed circumstances. ‘Bouncing back’ implies a capacity to absorb shocks and challenges to the system and recover to normal operations as quickly and painlessly as possible. That is essentially the mindset with which governing authorities are approaching the financial crisis: ‘repair and continue’. But given the fragility of many of our systems, we can also expect that what ‘recovers’ can be very different from what went before. Indeed, the moment of crisis can be an opportunity for radical innovators – so long as they are ready to seize the moment. The philosophy that ‘a crisis is a terrible thing to waste’ suggests that sound, long term resilience planning would include a portfolio of options for more radical innovation – for example advancing the models for viable rural communities advanced in the fiery spirits community.
Carnegie’s Opportunity
These thoughts suggest that the rural community of practice may be well placed to take advantage of the present interest in resilience:
1) The petal model is clearly future-focussed and systemic and provides a model of both resilience and transformation. Might we be able to use the growing interest in local community resilience as part of emergency preparedness to introduce the petal model into community conversation more explicitly as a useful prompt for conversations linking the present and the future, the local and the national?
2) Much of the discussion about improving the quality and access to public services in rural areas has been predicated on notions of equity and social justice. Might we not be able to add a further dimension to that dialogue with central and local government today based on the notion of the ‘resilience buffer’? After all, resilience planning (as for the flu pandemic) is highlighting urban centres’ reliance on community hinterlands and the greater security and flexibility in distributed networks of resources. Can we play the resilience card?
3) Finally, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is of more than passing academic interest. The flu pandemic continues to unfold and may take on a more virulent form later in the year, disrupting normal patterns for many months. The energy infrastructure is likewise far from stable. There are plenty of other shocks to the system that can be anticipated. Are we really confident that our existing community resilience planning is adequate for the challenges ahead?
Is this a theme worth developing in the fiery spirits community?
Add a Comment
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Comment by Brian James Gibb on October 31, 2009 at 2:23 -
Following this thread is it not that somehow 'resilience' is the counterpart of 'exposure'? Within this community we seem to have well developed ideas of the various factors to which we are exposed: climate change, energy/resource depletion, the heavy hand of 'governance' wether civic or commercial; and, is it not that when we are trying to understand the obvious resilience of small island communities we are talking about the cultural mores and precepts that have grown through nessesity as a set of responses to exposure to the vagaries of weather and marginal landscapes and their resultant marginal economies; and that yes we should look to these in the context of propogating the physical assets of a community (self sustaining, local surplus after need etc.) but should we not be especially giving attention to addressing and challenging such within the cultural millieux in which we work.?.cooperative as oppossed to competitive, humour as oppossed to harshness. etc.
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Comment by Justin Kenrick on September 15, 2009 at 14:37 -
“Islanders, particularly on smaller remote islands, seem to have resilience built in. . . if I'm right about islands, how possible is it to develop or transfer in non island populations?” (Lucy, Eigg) They may appear “more resilient because they often have a specific geographical identity. . . if so, how does this impact on the way we work in larger towns or cities?” (John, Douglas) “Is social capital more abundant in smaller places due to the nature of how people interact?” (David Muir, Devon)
Eigg’s islands (http://islandsgoinggreen.org/) initiative is - for me - a really thought-provoking attempt to highlight this crucial quality of immediacy/ responsibility/ it aint going to happen nowhere else if it aint happening here quality of interaction. Perhaps this involves not always trying to get past the messiness of relationships to achieve outcomes, but involves paying attention to the process of ensuring and nurturing good relations and seeing what grows out of that soil. Having said that, my kids might point out that the photo of me and Blue on the beach at Porty is not a photo of father son bonding over holiday ice cream but a photo taken by some newspaper in the midst of some Porty campaign, Blue just saw the chance and managed to get an ice cream out of a busy dad - much improving the newspaper story!
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Comment by Anthony Hodgson on July 27, 2009 at 15:30
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The contributions show that there are many angles on the question of resilience. I fully support Nick's initiative to bring together many of these perspectives and map out the territory in a multi-dimensional way. For me the key questions are and . I am planning a research seminar to address these questions in a multi-disciplinary way (hopefully before the end of the year) in a joint IFF and RSA exercise. The approach will probably be a bit "head" for community development at this stage (hence named research) but hopefully will come out with some fruitful insights and directions for new learning. The contributions here on the blog and the event Nick is planning will prove immensely helpful in increasing the breadth of awareness of the approaches that need to be taken into consideration. One angle that perhaps relates to the point above "we can envision the future in any sort of positive way" is the necessity for a design revolution. We successfully designed a heavier than air machine that can fly (on fossil fuel). Can we now invent a "heavier than earth" society that can fly (on sunshine)? (Clumsy metaphors!) And can we extend our terrestrial ecology to a cosmic ecology and recognize this is all taking place within an Intelligent Universe, about which we are barely in the kindergarten?
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Comment by Lars Stenberg on July 24, 2009 at 3:07 -
We have a discussion on a blog page, which is a bit tricky for threads, but I’d like to pick up on Tony Kendle's mention of "culture as necessary for resilience to have meaning" way back on page 1. It’s good to see the word culture in a debate here on FS even if the discussion drifted (or perhaps sprinted) away from it. This is worthy of its own thread (see A Sense of Place group). IMO culture is the only mechanism by which we can envision the future in any sort of positive way. It is also central to any form of resilience. I particularly like David's example of the Babushkas mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, where culture serves to create resilience in a community. I'm sure it's obvious to everyone, but it's worth repeating that this happened despite the political system, despite the woeful economic conditions of the Soviet era. Personally I feel that attempting to "capitalise on" or build resilience by dickering with political systems and local economies is a long way from the whole story and may well be a distraction from the where the real work should go on. Culture routinely asks fundamental questions, embraces multiple view points, is not embarrassed to work with visions of utopia. The most powerful tool of culture is imagination: the ability to envision something that doesn't yet exist. The support of cultural activities should be central to any strategy to open up useful debate about our future for everyone and genuinely embed resilience into our communities. If you would like to debate this, visit the Sense of Place group discussion "Culture".
Cheers
Lars
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Comment by David Muir on July 23, 2009 at 12:39 -
I agree that resilience and local autonomy are closely linked. I suspect small island communities do well in a crisis because they are used to taking responsibility for their own affairs. The maxim 'we are stronger together' is often used to justify a high level of centralised control, but it only works up to a certain size or level of complexity. After that we arguably get weaker, or at least more vulnerable. Perhaps we need to argue for replacing central government 'regulation' with central government advice/support/wisdom/aspiration/vision, which will help local community groups make a good decision for their context. But this requires robust democratic structures and governance at the very-local level, so that vested interests amongst the local-rich do not take advantage of a crisis situation. Perhaps we need a different model of 'scrutiny' than the intricate and complex network of central-government-led regulation? We do need scrutiny, though, and we must not be naive about this.
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Comment by Jonathan Dawson on July 23, 2009 at 11:41
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Very interesting discussion - thanks. I want to draw your attention to an international conference we will be putting on here at Findhorn in early October (3rd - 10th) called Positive Energy 2: Building Bioregional Resilience. This pulls together leading pioneers from the worlds of business, community and government in the field of building resilient communities and local economies. Please download the flyer from www.findhorn.org/positiveenergy2
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Comment by Osbert Lancaster on July 21, 2009 at 18:05
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Thanks Nick - sounds good.
Also look forward to seeing people at the Big Tent. I'll be on The Melting Pot stand some of the time, or text me 07981 528 991.
cheers
Osbert
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Comment by John on July 21, 2009 at 11:41 -
Has anyone explored the issue of scale in relation to resilience? I wonder if the reasons for island or smaller distinct communities appearing more resilient is because they often have a specific geographical identity. And if so, how does this impact on the way we work in larger towns or cities where the ability of communities to self organise is more difficult due to their size. Is social capital more abundant in smaller places due to the nature of how people interact? And what does Tony's Big Lunch video have to teach us about how we can help to grow more resilience in urban areas?
There's also the issue of third sector organisations becoming victims of their own success, growing so big that they are eventually perceived as distant by their respective communities - evident in the current debate about some of the larger housing associations - a situation I liken to the Russian Revolution! Their increasing lack of community support surely makes them less resilient.
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Comment by Nick Wilding on July 21, 2009 at 11:41 -
Hi Davie and all ...
It seems to me that at the heart of building resilience will be getting much, much better about rekindling community by learning how to learn... together.
I find that this angle, although implicit in much of what's said at the moment, is actually at the core of addressing Graham's point about transcending a more 'bounce back' take on 'resilience' (a bit like David Wilding's story of 'babas' - who hold traditional values together in the face of disruption - there may also be something in this that speaks to Lucy's point about island communities' traditions as having in-built resilience) moving to a more 'transformational' take - which is informed by understanding transformation, evolutionary change, and how people learn together, unblocking as yet untapped potential through collective action. This is where I see exciting links to the asset-based community development approach, among others...
Teasing out this point will, I suspect, help to connect some different 'movements' who all have lots to offer this resilience-building work - from those in the community development tradition (especially popular educators after Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal - see Ben's recent blog post on this for example), to those who have worked with corporations who have realised that 'command and control' no longer works as an organising philosophy for evolving, complex organisational systems (which is I think where Graham started this conversation), to transition towns movement activists (some of whom might be coming at this work from permaculture/design/'green' movement perspectives on renewables etc. which is really great on tangible projects and perhaps not as informed by 'process' skills).
Anyway, enjoying this emerging conversation. Will share further developed thoughts soon.
Best
Nick
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Comment by Davie Philip on July 21, 2009 at 10:08 -
One thing that Transition initiatives all believe is that the building of local resilience will help us weather the storms that are fast approaching. Resilience can be understood as the flip-side of vulnerability and is the ability of a system to hold together and function in the face of disruption and shock. This means having the capacity to deal with adversity and the ability to find new ways of doing things when current approaches no longer serve us. Because the possibility of abrupt breakdown in our vital social, economic and environmental systems is rising fast we need to find ways to accelerate the building the resilience of our local communities. Even communities that currently have a certain amount of resilience, such as Island communities, will need to prepare themselves for a very different context.
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