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The International Journal of
Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies
ThESocIalScIEncES.com
VOLUME 9 ISSUE 3-4
The International Journal of
Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies …………………………………
The Social Sciences Collection
VOLUME 9 ISSUE 3-4
JULY 2015
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
www.thesocialsciences.com
First published in 2015 in Champaign, Illinois, USA
by Common Ground Publishing LLC
www.commongroundpublishing.com
ISSN 2329-1621
© 2015 (individual papers), the author(s)
© 2015 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground
All rights reserved. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes
of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the
applicable copyright legislation, no part of this work may be
reproduced by any process without written permission from the
publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies
is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-
referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary,
ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance
and highest significance is published.
EDITOR
…………………………………
Gerassimos Kouzelis, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD – THE SOCIAL SCIENCES COLLECTION
…………………………………
Patrick Baert, Selwyn College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
Andreja Bubic, University of Split, Split, Croatia
Norma Burgess, Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA
Hillel Goelman, University of British Columbia, Canada
Peter Harvey, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia
Vangelis Intzidis, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece
Paul James, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Ivana Batarelo Kokic, University of Split, Split, Croatia
Gerassimos Kouzelis, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Alexandros-Andreas Kyrtsis, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Massimo Leone, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
José Luis Ortega Martín, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain
Francisco Fernandez Palomares, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain
Constantine D. Skordoulis, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Sanja Stanic, University of Split, Split, Croatia
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
…………………………………
Ashaki Leidia Dore
Assefa Tefera Dibaba
Ayfer Aydıner Boylu
Ayse Belgin Aksoy
Ban Qman
Banu Baybars Hawks
Barbara Burgess-Wilkerson
Ben Shacklette
Cal Clark
Camille Nakhid
Carl Hylton
Carla Vidal Figueroa
Carlie D. Trott
Carlos Amunátegui Perelló
Comfort Abosede Okotoni
Coral Cara
Corina Gruber
Cornelia R. Karger
Cory Callahan
Daniel Pasciuti
Darquise Lafrenière
David Bruce Lundberg
Denise Orpustan-Love
Deniz Cetin
Deslea Konza
Diane Costello
Dimitrios Vlachopoulos
Dominic Hakim Silvio
Drene Somasundram
Eloisa G. Tamez
Emanuele Achino
Evon Spangler
Fatma Gülengül Birinci
Fatos Tarifa
Florin Oprescu
Francisco Ródenas Rigla
Freddy Zapata
Fulya Kama Ozelkan
Ganapatrao Yashwant Shitole
Golam M. Mathbor
Gonca Erim
Gouri Sankar Banerjee
Helaine Ciporen
Hülya Öztop
Humera Aftab Sheikh
Hyunsook Kang
Idongesit Eshiet
Imen Ben Abda
Indra Maipita
Ira Konstantinou
Isah Adamu
Jacinta Byrne-Doran
Jacqui Rogers
James Hendricks
James Juniper
James Moir
Jarmila Hickman
Jason Powell
John W. Friesen
Johnitha Watkins Johnson
Joos Meikhel Gaghenggang
Jonathan H. Westover
Jorge Garcés Ferrer
José Azoh
Jose Juan Bautista
Jose Maria G. Pelayo III
Joseph Adetunji Adepoju
Kainat Bashir
Kamil Dobeš
Kam-yee Law
Karen Yu
Katarzyna Lewtak
Kathryn Riley
Katy Goldstraw
Kayo Nakazawa
Kyung Hong
Langtone Maunganidze
Leocadia Díaz Romero
Lester J. Thompson
Leticia De Leon
Lilach Marom
Liliana Rodríguez-Campos
Lisa McDonald
Lisa Quinn-Lee
Lisette E. Torres
Liz Jackson
Lucia Taylor
Lucky Daniel Tshireletso
Lynda S. Livingston
M. Serhat Öztürk
M. Tait
Mahadevi Ramakrishnan
Makoto Sakai
Manon Robillard
Marcelo E. K. Buzato
Marcelo Fetz
Margaret Cavin Hambrick
Margaret Coombes
Margarida Faria
Maria Divina Gracia Roldan
Marilyn Whitney
Marin Spetič
Marjorie P. Callahan
Mark Price
Mary S O’Halloran
Masrur Alam Khan
Matthew F. Filner
Mayka Garcia-Hipola
Meena Chavan
Meltem Karakuyu
Merle Hearns
Mervyn Wighting
Michael Perini
Michael Skoumios
Michal Ostrovsky
Michèle Minor-Corriveau
Michelle L. McCrory
Milana Hachaturova
Ming-chun Sinn
Minna Maunula
Mir Rabiul Islam
Mireia Tintore
Mohammad Essawi
Mohammad Jawarneh
Mohd-Dan Jantan
Mom Bishwakarma
Monique Lortie
Muhammad Asif Malik
Mohammed Hailat
Muhammad Kabir Yusuf
Myint Zan
Myra Suzanne Franco
Nasser A Alfaleh
Natalia Hernandez
Nattapat Sarobol
Nazli Sila Cesur
Nceba Nyembezi
Never Assan
Nicholas Evans
Nicholas Mangos
Nicole De Wet
Nimisha H. Patel
Nola E. Harvey
Noor Asilah Nordin
Nopporn Sarobol
Norma Joyner
Norma Rodriguez-Roldan
Oana Mihaela Stoleriu
Octavian Groza
Oksana Jenenkova
Olga Achón Rodríguez
Orli Noriany
Ozlem Yagcioglu
P. David Marshall
Paolo Russu
Patricia B. Strait
Paul Stepney
Paul Throssell
Paula Benevene
Paula Curvelo
Paula Hodgson
Paula Rama Silva
Pauline Garcia-Reid
Peter Stone
Petra Adolfsson
Phyllis Ghim Lian Chew
Pinar Enneli
Pnina Levi
Poonam Dev
Prajakta Pradhan
Pratyush Vatsala Tripathi
Preeti Sharma
Quan V. Le
Quynh Lê
R. Scott Smith
Rafik Massoudi
Rafik Santrosyan
Rania Khalil
Raphael Avornyo
Rasa Balockaite
Rebekkah Stuteville
Rema Haddad
Rex Perez Bringula
Rick Chew
Robert J. Reid
Roberto Bergami
Rodanthi Tzanelli
Roger Hopkins Burke
Rokiah A. Kadir
Roman Hájek
Ronnie E. Mahler
Rosa Munoz-Luna
Rosalie Otters
Roshni Narendran
Roxanne Bélanger
S. Perks
S. A. Hamed Hosseini
Saadia Mirza
Salah Hailat
Samantha Manley
Samson Chiru
Sandra Brigsa
Sara Terrell
Sarah Gilkerson
Sarah Higley
Sarah Pollock
Satu Uusiautti
Savannah Carroll
Scott H. Clarke
Scott Smith
Scott Sworts
Seher Cesur-Kılıçaslan
Shagufa Kapadia
Shannon Peterson
Sharon Pelech
Sheridy Leslie
Shiri Kuzniz
Sibel Erkal
Sima Farshid
Sirima Ussawarakha
Sneha Annavarapu
Snjezana Bilic
Somayeh Karimi
Sonja Rizzolo
Stacey Hills
Stanley McCray
Stephen Burgess
Stephen Micheal Charter
Steven White
Sudata DebChaudhury
Svetlana Sablina
Szilvia Simai
Terry-Ann Jones
Theodore Michael Christou
Theresa Russo
Therese Madden
Thomas A. Budd
Thomas Brian Whalen
Thomas Kong
Tiantian Zheng
Tim MacNeill
Tony Kandaiya
Uche Eme-Uche
Umesh Sharma
Uzma Mukhtar
Valentine J. Belfiglio
Vincenzo Corvello
Virasuda Sribayak
Weng Marc Lim
William Hey
William L. Blizek
William Pelech
Wosenseged Kidane
Yasin Kerem Gümüş
Yong Ryung Lee
Yonghui Wang
Yun Yue
Zeynep Çopur
Ziqi (Nina) Zhuang
Scope and Concerns
THE DISCIPLINARY WORK OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
…………………………………
Each of the sciences of the social is marked by its distinctive disciplinary modes—the thinking
practices of Anthropology, Archaeology, Behavioral Sciences, Cognitive Science,
Communications, Cultural Studies, Demography, Economics, Education, Geography,
Humanities, Law, Management, Media, Politics, Policy Studies, Psychology, Social Welfare,
Sociology, to name a some of the principal sciences of the social. The disciplinary variation is so
broad that practitioners in some of these areas may not even consider their discipline a ‘science’,
whilst in other disciplines there is a general consensus about the scientific character of their
endeavor.
What is a discipline? Disciplines represent fields of deep and detailed content knowledge,
communities of professional practice, forms of discourse (of fine and precise semantic distinction
and technicality), areas of work (types of organization or divisions within organizations such as
academic departments or research organizations), domains of publication and public
communication, sites of common learning, shared experiences of apprenticeship into disciplinary
community, methods of reading and analysing the world, ways of thinking or epistemic frames,
even ways of acting and types of person. ‘Discipline’ delineates the boundaries of intellectual
community, the distinctive practices and methodologies of particular areas of rigorous and
concentrated intellectual effort, and the varying frames of reference used to interpret the world.
And what is a science? Some of the studies of the social habitually and comfortably call
themselves ‘sciences’, but others do not. The English word ‘science’ derives from the Latin
‘sciens’, or knowing. Return to the expansiveness of this root, and studies of the human could lay
equally legitimate claim to that word.
‘Science’ in this broadest of senses implies and intensity of focus and a concentration of
intellectual energies greater than that of ordinary, everyday, commonsense or lay ‘knowing’. It is
more work and harder work. It relies on the ritualistic rigors and accumulated wisdoms of
disciplinary practices.
These are some of the out-of-the-ordinary knowledge processes that might justify use of the
word ‘science’, not only in the social sciences but also in the natural, physical, mathematical and
applied sciences:
Science has an experiential basis. This experience may be based direct personal intuition of
the already-known, on interests integral to the lifeworld, on the richness of life fully lived. Or it
might be experience gained when we move into new and potentially strange terrains, deploying
the empirical processes of methodical observation or systematic experimentation.
Science is conceptual. It has a categorical frame of reference based on higher levels of
semantic precision and regularity than everyday discourse. On this foundation, it connects
concept to concept into schemas. This is how science builds theories which model the world.
Science is analytical. It develops frames of reasoning and explanation: logic, inference,
prediction, hypothesis, induction, deduction. And it sees the world through an always cautiously
critical eye, interrogating the interests, motives and ethics that may motivate knowledge claims
and subjecting epistemic assumptions to an ever-vigilant process of metacognitive reflection.
Science is application-oriented. It can be used to do things in the world. In these endeavors,
it may be pragmatic, designing and implementing practical solutions within larger frames of
reference and achieving technical and instrumental outcomes. Or it may be transformative—
redesigning paradigms, social being and even the conditions of the natural world. What, after all,
is the purpose of knowing other than to have an effect on the world, directly or indirectly?
Science can be any or all of these experiential, conceptual, analytical and applied things.
Some disciplines may prioritize one or other of these knowledge processes, and this may be the
source of their strength as well as potential weakness. In any event, these are the kinds of things
we do in order to know in the out-of-the-ordinary ways worthy of the name ‘science’.
The Social Sciences conference, journals, book series and online media provide a space to
discuss these varied disciplinary practices, and examine examples of these practices in action. In
this respect, their concern is to define and exemplify disciplinarity. They foster conversations
which range from the broad and speculative to the microcosmic and empirical.
THE INTERDISCIPLINARY WORK OF THE SOCIAL AND OTHER
SCIENCES
…………………………………
Interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary or multidisciplinary work crosses disciplinary boundaries.
This may be for pragmatic reasons, in order to see and do things that can’t be seen or done
adequately within the substantive and methodological confines of a discipline. Broader views
may prove to be more powerful than narrower ones, and even the more finely grained within-
discipline views may prove all-the-more powerful when contextualized broadly. The deeper
perspectives of the discipline may need to be balanced with and measured against the broader
perspectives of interdisciplinarity.
Interdisciplinary approaches may also be applied for reasons of principle, to disrupt the
habitual narrowness or outlook of within-discipline knowledge work, to challenge the ingrained,
discipline-bound ways of thinking that produce occlusion as well as insight. If the knowable
universe is a unity, discipline is a loss as well as a gain, and interdisciplinarity may in part
recover that loss.
Interdisciplinary approaches also thrive at the interface of disciplinary and lay
understandings. Here, interdisciplinarity is needed for the practical application of disciplined
understandings to the actually existing world. Robust applied knowledge demands an
interdisciplinary holism. A broad epistemological engagement is required simply to be able to
deal with the complex contingencies of a really-integrated universe.
The Social Sciences conference, journals, book series and online media are spaces in which
to discuss these varied interdisciplinary practices, and to showcase these practices in action
across and between the social, natural and applied sciences.
WAYS OF SEEING, WAYS OF THINKING, AND WAYS OF KNOWING
…………………………………
What are the distinctive modes of the social, natural and applied sciences? What are their
similarities and differences?
In English (but not some other languages), ‘science’ suffers a peculiar semantic narrowing. It
seems to apply more comfortably to the natural world, and only by analogy to some of the more
systematic and empirically-based of the human sciences. It connotes a sometimes narrow kind of
systematicity: the canons of empirical method; an often less-than reflective acceptance of
received theoretical categories and paradigms; formal reasoning disengaged from human and
natural consequences; technical control without adequate ethical reflection; an elision of means
and ends; narrow functionalism, instrumentalism and techno-rationalism; a pragmatism to the
neglect broader view of consequences; and conservative risk aversion. These are some of the
occupational hazards of activities that name themselves sciences—social, natural or applied. In
studying the social setting, however, it’s not good enough just to have a rigorous empirical
methodology without a critical eye to alternative interests and paradigmatic frames of reference,
and without a view to the human-transformational potentials of knowledge work.
Humanistic methodologies sometimes address the social in a deliberate counterpoint to
science, distancing themselves from the perceived narrownesses of scientific method. This move,
however, may at times leave science stranded, separated from its social origins and ends. The
natural and technological sciences are themselves more subject to contestation around axes of
human interest than the narrow understanding of science seems to be able to comprehend.
Whether it be bioethics, or climate change, or the debates around Darwinism and Intelligent
Design, or the semantics of computer systems, questions of politics and ideology are bound
closely to the ostensible evidence. Faux empiricism is less than adequate to the address the more
important questions, even in the natural and technological sciences. Science can be found lacking
when it is disengaged from the humanistic.
The humanistic, however, has its own occupational hazards: disengaged critique and
supercilious inaction without design responsibility; political confrontation without systematic
empirical foundation; ideological fractiousness without apparent need for compromise; the
agnostic relativism of lived experience and identity-driven voice; voluntarism that leads to a
naive lack of pragmatism and failure in application.
A reconstructive view of the social, natural and applied sciences would be holistic,
attempting always to avoid the occlusions of narrow methodological approaches. It would also be
ambitious, intellectually and practically.
In this context, the Social Sciences conference, group of journals, book Imprint, and online
media pursue two aspirations, two openings. The first is an intellectual opening, founded on an
agenda designed to strengthen the theories, the research methodologies, the epistemologies and
the practices of teaching and learning about the social world and the relation of the social to the
natural world.
The second opening is pragmatic and inventive. All intellectual work is an act of
imagination. At its best, it is ambitious, risky and transformative. If the natural sciences can have
human ambitions as big as those of the medical sciences—the fight against MS or cancer or
Alzheimer’s, for instance—then the social sciences can have ambitions as large as to settle the
relation of humans to the natural environment, the material conditions of human equality and the
character of the future person.
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies Volume 9, 2015, www.thesocialsciences.com, ISSN 2329-1621
© Common Ground, Authors, All Rights Reserved,
Permissions: [email protected]
Table of Contents
Imaginative Forms Built through Citizen Engagement: Sustainable Food Systems
as an Ethics of Care ........................................................................................................ 1
Deborah Schrader and Lorelei L. Hanson
Evidence of Adaptation to Flooding from Three Regions in Bangladesh: A
Multidisciplinary Study ............................................................................................... 11
Valerie Ingham, Mir Rabiul Islam, John Hicks, Ian Manock, and Richard Sappey
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies
Volume 9, 2015, www.thesocialsciences.com, ISSN 2329-1621
© Common Ground, Deborah Schrader, Lorelei L. Hanson, All Rights Reserved
Permissions: [email protected]
Imaginative Forms Built through Citizen
Engagement: Sustainable Food Systems as an
Ethics of Care
Deborah Schrader, University of Alberta, Canada
Lorelei L. Hanson, Athabasca University, Canada
Abstract: In this paper we explore the potential of citizen imaginings associated with municipal food policy development
to be utilized as building blocks towards the transformation to a more sustainable food system. We explore this potential through a case study of the development of “fresh, Edmonton’s Food and Urban Agriculture Strategy.” We start from a
position advanced by Wendy Mendes (2008, 945) that in making and remaking the city, governmental institutions need to
demonstrate greater flexibility and openness in their governance arrangements and institutional capacity, as well as “in
how the city’s imaginative form is reshaped and mobilized.” We employ an ethics of care as an analytical frame in
reading through in-depth interviews with citizens involved in the development of “fresh,” focusing on their descriptions
of sustainability and how to build a sustainable food system in Edmonton. Drawing attention to the ethics of care embedded in these imaginative constructions, we discuss how they can act as entry points into a social and economic
transformation process.
Keywords: Sustainable Food Systems, Ethics of Care, Urban Agriculture, Urban Food Strategy
Introduction
ithin food studies scholarship a debate has emerged about whether alternative food
activities, such as urban agriculture (UA), that attempt to create new policy, build
food infrastructure, encourage land preservation, expand access to healthy food, and
provide food education for citizens (Levkoe 2011), challenge or uphold neoliberalism. The
debate is guided from an understanding of two opposing food system narratives – conventional
and alternative – both of which describe the ways food is produced, processed, distributed,
consumed and disposed of within a social context guided by neoliberalism (McClintock 2014).
Some scholars (e.g., Lavid 2013; Mubvami and Mushamba 2006; Mougeot 2006) maintain that
these food activities challenge the industrial food system as they build community, diversify and
expand local economies, reduce environmental impacts, and give citizens healthier food choices.
Other critical social scientists (e.g., Agyeman and McEntee 2014; DeLind 2011; Levkoe 2011)
have contested the popular assumptions about UA arguing that the outcomes of these initiatives,
though well-intentioned, often support neoliberalism or are “reformist at best” (McClintock
2014, 148). The view is that grassroots and non-profit organizations fill the gaps left by the roll
back of the welfare state and acquiesce to, if not support neoliberalism by continuing to operate
within it.
Nathan McClintock (2014) attempts to move beyond this debate about whether alternative
food activities like UA are progressive or maintain the status quo by arguing that UA is
simultaneously both neoliberal and radical, as capitalist structures both obstruct and encourage
food initiatives. For example, a market garden exists on undeveloped land within urban
boundaries until land values dictate that development is more desirable. The garden fills a need
created by a gap in the local system by providing low-income families access to local food as
well as participation in an entrepreneurial farm venture, until the capitalist impulse of profit
accumulation overrides, and the landowner sells or develops the land, perhaps even for more
money as a result of the presence of the garden. The market garden is an UA initiative that over
time is both encouraged and limited by neoliberal capitalist structures. The key is to recognize
these inescapable contradictions and find ways to direct efforts and activities toward the “long-
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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
term incremental process of reclaiming social life from an excessive reliance on market logic”
(Johnston 2008, 101).
Researchers and citizen activists are encouraged then to embrace, analyze and understand the
inherent contradictions of UA, so that it can be better positioned to support food and social
systems transformation. However, the application of this analysis on real life practices and
situations remains vague. How should a community or non-profit proceed with this analysis and
how can the analysis be used to help them undertake UA activities that work within the existing
system but are also helping incrementally transform the food system in fundamental ways? As a
starting point Wendy Mendes (2008) argues that the making and re-making of the city must be
imagined before it becomes real, and that governmental institutions need to demonstrate greater
flexibility and openness in their governance arrangements and institutional capacity, to allow
citizens city’s imaginative forms to be shaped and mobilized. Imaginings are a key component
then for a new system, but then what? To move into the connections between UA and broader
systemic change requires a framework that evokes intentional, responsive practices. An ethics of
care, a moral theory founded on relationality, interdependence and reciprocity, provides a
conceptual entry point for moving beyond embracing the contradictions inherent in UA
initiatives towards more transformative work by connecting these food experiences to a
potentially broader movement of systemic change.
Our research explores citizens’ imaginings of sustainability and Edmonton’s sustainable
food system as integral work in navigating the interconnections and intricacies of urban food
system transformation. To provide some context for this argument we present an overview of the
case study and research methods, briefly discuss an ethics of care, and then explore the degree to
which the four elements of care - attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness -
exist within citizens’ imaginings of a more sustainable food system, and thereby provide a value
framework that can inform food work directed at social transformation.
Background
Geographical Context and Local Food Activism
Edmonton is the capital city of Alberta, a province in western Canada. As of the 2011 Canadian
census, Edmonton’s population was 960,015 (Statistics Canada 2013). Serving as a
transportation gateway to Canada’s north and the Athabasca bitumen deposits, Edmonton is a
key supply and service center for crude oil and oil sands development, upgrading and refining.
As a result of a hot economy, Edmonton has become one of the fastest growing cities in Canada
over the past two years (ECF and ESPC 2014), and in the past decade has attracted tens of
thousands of new residents from other parts of Canada and the world. In spite of this growth, like
most urban centers across North America, Edmonton has a large population of people who live in
poverty and are food insecure. Last year alone, Edmonton’s food bank served over 40,000
different people (ECF and ESPC 2014).
Following a trend across North America, in 2012 the City of Edmonton adopted a food and
urban agriculture strategy, fresh, that it is now beginning to implement. The efforts of a local
civil society organization, the Greater Edmonton Alliance (GEA) was a catalyst, if not
determining factor, in putting urban agriculture on City Council’s agenda. Throughout 2008 and
2009 GEA mobilized hundreds of citizens to attend hearings on Edmonton’s municipal
development plan (MDP) as a way to pressure council to develop a food and agriculture strategy
and preserve urban farmland, particularly in the northeast corner of the City. In the period
between the council meetings, GEA authored and presented a policy paper for Council’s
consideration, organized dozens of house meetings, guided bus tours to view urban agricultural
lands, and co-organized public awareness events such as The Great Potato Giveaway that
brought 15,000 citizens to urban farmland where 45,000 kg (99,200 pounds) of free potatoes
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SCHRADER AND HANSON: IMAGINATIVE FORMS
were distributed. These events ensured that many thousands of people were educated and
motivated to get involved in the development of local food policy. GEA was rewarded for this
work as a food and urban agriculture strategy was legislatively mandated in the MDP (AB
Municipal Affairs 2012).
The development of fresh occurred over 13 months and provided opportunities for over 3000
citizens to supply input on its contents. As a part of this citizen engagement, 15 stakeholders
were appointed by the mayor to an advisory committee and tasked with completing a draft
strategy, and 51citizens participated in a deliberative engagement process, meeting for six
Saturdays over two months to deliberate on key issues for inclusion in the food and urban
agriculture strategy. Recommendations arising from these two engagement processes, as well as
several others (e.g., key stakeholder workshops, public opinion and landowner surveys) indicated
strong support for preserving farmland and expanding urban agriculture within Edmonton. The
final draft strategy, written by City of Edmonton staff, did not mirror this emphasis but included
these two recommendations alongside seven other strategic directions. Consequently, the final
strategy received mixed reviews from some members of the advisory committee and many local
food activists. Nonetheless, in November 2012 City Council approved fresh, directed the
administration to appoint a food council to implement the Strategy, and promised continued
funding to support this work (City of Edmonton 2013).
In the end, GEA played a key role in building public opposition to fresh, but lost its
momentum and ultimately failed to meet its overall goal of preserving farmland within city
boundaries. In spite of keeping the preservation of urban farmland in the local news, and ongoing
organizing efforts, including participating in almost all of the City’s citizen engagement
processes, when GEA representatives appeared before Council in 2012 they not only found little
support for their position, but the mayor and several councilors questioned the premise of their
proposal to protect urban farmland by expropriation as there was no business plan to support it.
Hence, rather than transforming the urban planning discourse into how to create an innovative
urban agricultural hub in Edmonton, GEA ultimately fed a polarized debate about sprawl versus
farmland (Male 2012). Consequently, fresh in many ways paved the way for suburban sprawl to
proceed as usual rather than offering innovative strategies for supporting the local food economy
(Walters 2012).
Data Collection and Analysis
From 2008 through 2013 we undertook participatory action research on the development of fresh
and used three data collection methods: participant observation, surveys and interviews. For this
paper, the data utilized included our observational notes, and the 15 semi-structured interviews
undertaken with people involved in varying degrees with the development of fresh1. Those
interviewed included individuals who were very knowledgeable about the local and global food
systems through food banks, market gardens, organic farms and food activism. Some of these
people had been working on food system issues for five or more years, while others had very
limited participation in the alternative food system. All those interviewed were asked about their
impressions of fresh and its development, their experience in the food strategy development
process, and the steps required to move Edmonton toward greater food sustainability. For the
purposes of this paper, we focused primarily on examining the key informants’ views of
sustainability and what was required to build a more sustainable food system in Edmonton.
1 To protect the anonymity of the key respondents they have all been assigned a number ranging
from 1 – 15 (e.g., KR-6).
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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
Ethics of Care
An ethics of care is a moral framework that starts from the assumption that care is fundamental to
human existence and that human progress and flourishing are dependent on “attending to and
meeting the needs of particular others, for whom we take responsibility” (Held 2006, 10). Care
is defined as “a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and
repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies,
our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining
web” (Fisher and Tronto 1990, 40). Care involves both the practices and values that sustain
social relations (Held 2006). Practices are actions that exhibit how and why we respond to needs,
while the values create evaluation parameters for those practices; we can act with care but we
also need an ethic to evaluate those actions.
An ethics of care alters the basic ways in which we understand and live our moral and
political lives as social relations become foundational to judgments and decision-making,
supplementing the more traditional criteria of efficiency, self-interest and impartiality.
Relationality, interdependence and reciprocity provide moral guidance in building and supporting
relations that are trusting, considerate and caring. In order to practice care, we need to pay
attention to and take responsibility for someone else, and be able to receive care. Rather than
only satisfying our own interests and needs, we conscientiously care for and build relationships
in response to the needs of others within specific circumstances. Situations of care can foster
imbalances of power, requiring full attention towards the mutuality of relationships. Also, the
negotiation of power relations can bring about clashes in values and interests. In this sense,
relationality foregrounds how “[p]ersons in caring relations are acting for self and other together”
(Held 2006, 12) with sensitivity to specific contexts. Enacting an ethics of care can thus be seen
as a process that involves four elements: attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and
responsiveness (Tronto 1995; Fisher and Tronto 1990).
While the practice and values of care traditionally exist in one’s personal life, an ethics of
care extends these values and practices to function as a moral framework for decision-making in
broader terms. Caring relationships are defined by mutual dependence and the ways we can
realize that dependence in the interconnected personal, public, economic and global contexts of
our lives (Held 2006). Joan Tronto (1995, 145) argues that “care is not solely private or
parochial; it can concern institutions, societies, and even global levels of thinking.” Caring
relations provide a moral framework for organizing civic life, for creating laws, establishing
human rights, developing economic models, and providing public health care. Virginia Held
(2006, 19) asserts that as the social and political implications of an ethics of care are fully
understood, it becomes clear that “it is a radical ethic calling for a profound restructuring of
society.” Adopting an ethics of care as a political framework means that the foundational values,
organizational systems and activities all central to being human have to be reassessed.
Interview Transcript Findings
If the elements of care provide values and analytical principles that can inform practice directed
at social transformation, adopting a caring perspective requires that attention is paid to each
element, to those involved in the care process, and to the context within which the process
operates. The four elements of care – responsibility, competence, attentiveness, and
responsiveness – act as a useful planning and evaluative practice framework to ensure that an
ethics of care is fully realized. In asking key respondents (n=15) to define sustainability as it
relates to food and how to build a more sustainable local food system we saw caring relations
invoked repeatedly, particularly highlighting responsibility and competence while not often fully
exploring power dimensions and the need to build relations of reciprocity.
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SCHRADER AND HANSON: IMAGINATIVE FORMS
Practicing care requires intentional acts of responsibility for someone else in ways that
embed their needs in our practices to affect their wellbeing. In discussions of sustainability, our
respondents describe taking care often as stewardship acts that help reconnect humans to the
natural world in such a way that ecological processes remain intact or are restored. One
respondent described these as broad sustainability practices; “You don’t deplete the ground. You
don’t pollute the water. You don’t pollute the air …people can participate in it” (KR-1). Given
that the respondents were asked to define what sustainability meant in relation to food, UA
initiatives were the medium for building care relations to other people and healthy communities
while also caring for the natural world. As this respondent explained, her UA work is directed at
“reconnecting our relationships with the producers and each other through food” (KR-3).
Respondents provided examples of sustainability activities that they were either aware of or
involved in, placing an emphasis on public engagement towards building a local sustainable food
system, through citizen involvement in civics (n=5), community development activities (n=4),
grassroots mobilization (n=3), and building partnerships (n=3).
Competence describes that ability to provide effective and appropriate care to another, and to
adequate knowledge being created and shared. When asked to describe key elements to help
move Edmonton towards food sustainability, effective education and information was the most
common element cited (n=8). Respondents detailed education as a way to increase citizen
awareness about food systems, to connect people to their food sources and providers, and to learn
about nutrition, health and life skills. Respondents describe that this knowledge building and
sharing process increases citizen concern for food issues and builds the collective voice, thereby
spreading the activities of food systems work to more community members. They saw a lack of
knowledge concerning food system analysis, identifying: the need for education in terms of
mentorship for new growers; public workshops on growing, preserving and cooking food;
childhood education on food consciousness; and improved public promotion of local food
opportunities.
Receiving care or responsiveness concerns both the ability to be cared for and the responses
to the care process; to be ‘well-cared-for’ requires a full circle of care, a willingness to both give
and receive care within an intentional context of support. The respondents discussed reciprocal
relationships built between producers and consumers through UA activities. One respondent
described getting to know a market gardener through their common civic work, remarking “now
when I go to the Farmers Market I look for Glory Gardens, right?... I’ve met her and you get a
sense of what she’s doing and some of the other farmers. And now I think a lot of those
relationships continue…” (KR-6). Similarly, another respondent involved in a public engagement
process focused on urban food and agriculture strategy, observed that for many of the
participants “a side effect was that they were more knowledgeable about local food and they
[then] cared about it” (KR-1).
Attentiveness points to the process of caring about another including a deep understanding
of needs, a critical view of practices and the relational power dimensions of a context, and a view
toward the future. When talking about a sustainable food system, respondents (n=6) spoke about
a better analysis and understanding of Edmonton’s context. One respondent described
understanding particular elements of a sustainable food system, the demands of those elements,
and the connections between them. “We have to look at everything that impacts food, it’s land,
water and people…youth. We have to look at the context and I think we have to respect the
potential of urban agriculture” (KR-12). Most of those interviewed also kept a view of the future
close at hand (n=10), seeing effective sustainable practices as requiring a long-range view, while
combining attentiveness for humans on the other side of the globe, other generations, as well as
the earth. As one individual explained, sustainability is thus, “doing everything we can to do now
to meet today’s needs, but not harming the needs of future generations… the seven generations
principle First Nations have” (KR-7).
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Exploring an Ethics of Care Discussion
A closer examination of respondent discussions of sustainability and key elements for
Edmonton’s sustainable food system reveal the four elements of care, responsibility, competence,
responsiveness and attentiveness, suggesting that an ethics of care already exists on some level
for many. Caring discourse, often expressed as stewardship practices connecting to both other
people and the natural world and as educational activities, was common to all interviews.
However, instances of care were not described as discrete elements, but alluded to throughout the
interviews. While respondents discussed or pointed to the values of care, “trust, solidarity,
mutual concern, and empathic responsiveness” (Held 2006, 15), they often failed to discuss the
connections between these values and how they are practically realized in their UA work.
Practicing care requires an orientation of caring, taking responsibility for someone else as we
ground our practices in their needs to affect their wellbeing and our own, while considering
power imbalances and responses to the care process. The element of responsiveness or the
reciprocal nature of caring, and the element of attentiveness through which we discern care
needs, are both fundamental to food work. Authentic reciprocal relations require people to take
on both positions of giving and receiving care, implying that attention has been paid to
understanding and balancing power relations. Unfortunately, expressions of care from our key
respondents most often describe the responsibility and competence elements while the
responsiveness and attentiveness elements are largely absent.
Within a care context, needs are discerned mutually and continuously by both the provider
and receiver of care. Attentiveness is important in food movement work as initiatives can become
misdirected and disempowering if caregivers assume to know what the needs are. Sustainability
and food systems look very different to someone struggling with the limitations of insufficient or
nonexistent housing than it does to a suburban homeowner. This was revealed by one respondent
who is involved professionally and personally in faith-based community development within the
economically poor inner city. “When we looked at say, the 70 folks at City Hall that spoke
[during fresh public hearings], there weren’t a lot of inner city voices that spoke that day, right?
The food issue being experienced from that side was a bit different” (KR-6). While this finding
was an anomaly, it speaks to the respondent’s understanding of care values within a specific,
practical context, enabling him to shift his understanding of needs and subsequent practices in
meaningful and timely ways as people and contexts change. In order to contribute to food system
change, UA activities must move beyond being initiatives created through charity models, such
as food handouts that create dependency while they diminish personal dignity. Instead, for
example, these alternative food activities could be the vehicle for providing jobs and networking
that would assist in skills development, leadership capacity building, and community
development. Understanding and balancing the elements contained within an ethics of care
framework provides distinct considerations and steps for the food movement to become more
vital vehicles of social change.
Research conducted with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), in which consumers
pre-buy food shares from producers, providing up-front capital at the beginning of the season,
assuring the farmer income, providing the consumer with seasonal food and creating relationship
opportunities for producers and consumers, describe these initiatives as expressions of an ethics
of care (Cox et al. 2014; Jarosz 2011; Wells and Gradwell 2001). CSAs build circles of care that
extend from the personal to the CSA community and to the environment as individuals and
families encounter other people and the natural world through their garden work. However, this
and many UA initiatives could further strengthen their contribution to food system change
through the application of an ethics of care framework. Deeper considerations for contextual
needs such as a lack of nutritious food in neighbourhoods with a shortage of food stores or
intentional shifts from personal to global realms of concern would grow circles of care. So while
an ethics of care is evident within CSAs, we argue that an even greater application of care values
6
SCHRADER AND HANSON: IMAGINATIVE FORMS
can strengthen and diversify food movement work and connect that work to broader work of
social transformation.
Discussions focused on sustainability with key respondents did not reveal full considerations
for power relations, connections between UA activities and the broader social system, and how to
nurture reciprocal relations in these activities, all relational pieces. Kevin Morgan (2010, 1860)
articulates that a “new politics of care” requires care to be defined as a function of the public
realm rather than belonging solely to the private realm, and applied fluidly both locally and
globally as the context directs. This is not easy to do, to find moments of opportunity to
encourage people to shift from the personal to the political. It requires citizens to go beyond the
scope of their particular UA initiative in order to consider broader connections both in terms of
food and social systems transformation. Citizens could then recognize these initiatives as sources
of power within the broader context as these connections and relationships become apparent. The
politics of care requires us to have diverse public conversations around these relations, ensuring
that attention is continually paid to shifting needs, contexts and power. A care perspective
enables citizens to acknowledge where they are at presently while they identify and move into
“sites of political potential” (Cox et al. 2014, 62), opportunities to imagine and create further UA
alternatives with broader implications for social justice and transformation.
Conclusion
The development of fresh, Edmonton’s Food and Urban Agriculture Strategy provides a context
from which to examine the imaginings of citizens concerning sustainability and transformation
towards a sustainable food system in Edmonton, imaginings that precede change becoming real
(Mendes 2008). While people working in the alternative food movement like the immediacy and
direct involvement inherent in many UA initiatives, they don’t often recognize the power
relations or connections that these initiatives may have to a larger project of systemic social and
economic change. We have used an ethics of care, grounded in values and practices of
relationality, interdependence and reciprocity, as an analytic framework to highlight care
perspectives woven throughout interviews with key citizen respondents. The framework brings
new understanding to the power dimensions within both the industrial food system and UA
activities, as under-developed circles of care in the latter. It also highlights the challenge and
value of building reciprocity into alternative food systems and UA initiatives. Caring values are
present in the good work being done presently towards sustainable food systems. However caring
practices require further inclusion of all the care elements for the actual work to “maintain,
continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible” (Fisher and Tronto
1990, 40). The care perspective already exists in the imaginations of our key respondents.
Building further capacity within UA initiatives for care attentiveness, responsibility, competence
and responsiveness in the public realm will strengthen their role in the transformation of both
food systems and social systems.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to graciously thank the key informants for their contributions to this
research and for the work they do towards food system transformation, and to the anonymous
reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions on the draft paper. We would also like to
thank Athabasca University and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council for funding
the Alberta Climate Dialogue project, to which this research is connected.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Deborah Schrader: Doctoral Candidate, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta, Edmonton,
AB, Canada
Dr. Lorelei L. Hanson: Associate Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada
9
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies Volume 9, 2015, thesocialsciences.com, ISSN: 2329-1621
© Common Ground, Valerie Ingham, Mir Rabiul Islam, John Hicks, Ian Manock,
Richard Sappey, All Rights Reserved Permissions: [email protected]
Evidence of Adaptation to Flooding from Three
Regions in Bangladesh: A Multidisciplinary Study
Valerie Ingham, Charles Sturt University, Australia
Mir Rabiul Islam, Charles Sturt University, Australia
John Hicks, Charles Sturt University, Australia
Ian Manock, Charles Sturt University, Australia
Richard Sappey, Charles Sturt University, Australia
Abstract: This paper reports and analyses the research into community approaches to flooding in twelve communities in
three regions in Bangladesh during 2010. The study adopted a framework utilising approaches in disaster management literature, particularly the phases of preparation, response and recovery, and relevant multidisciplinary theoretical
approaches to disaster management organisations and social capital. The results suggest that there is inadequate state
organisation and resources, particularly for infrastructure, during preparation and recovery phases, yet social capital is evident during response phases. However, beyond social capital, communities and individuals develop methods of
adapting including changing farming practices, changing occupations, resettlement and migration to urban labour
markets. Unfortunately these adaptations tend to reduce the level of social capital available for disaster response.
Keywords: Flooding, Adaptation, Disaster Management
Introduction
uring the year 2010, qualitative research was undertaken in 12 villages within three
regions of Bangladesh, the regions being in different geographic parts of the country (the
northern plains at the foothills of the Assam Mountains in India’s Meghalaya state, the
central lowlands area, and the southern coastal area). While there has been some research into
flooding in Bangladesh and into relevant aspects of economic, political, and social life which
have implications for how communities and institutions address flooding (Brouwer, Akter and
Brander 2007) this project contributes to the inventory of data and subsequent analysis from a
multidisciplinary disaster management perspective. The research reflects the disciplinary
backgrounds of the authors in developing the three phase approach to disaster management
(preparation, response and recovery) and sociological literature exploring organisational and
social capital literatures. The gravity of flooding in Bangladesh provides the rationale to better
understand and design improved systems as addressing these issues has implications for life and
livelihoods.
Literature Survey
In an overall sense, the emerging literature on disaster management has rested upon
conceptualising the phenomenon of disasters as comprising a series of phases. The principal
theoretical purpose is to analyse disasters as a precursor to developing policies, systems and
practices to eradicate or minimise the human, economic, political and social damage which flows
as a consequence of their inevitability. There are generally accepted to be three phases of any
disaster: preparation, response and recovery. At least to some extent, these have influenced
overall approaches to disaster management and in doing so have raised wider questions about the
theoretical assumptions upon which policies, systems and practice have come to be based. The
three phase approach has yet to be significantly challenged, at least as a set of theoretical
propositions which can readily be applied. That understanding disasters, as far as possible given
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their unpredictability in form, intensity and location, leads to practical outcomes which mitigate
their impact, has an apparent inexorable rationality.
What has developed is an expanding array of paradigms which may be contrasted because of
their differing assumptions and characteristics (e.g. ‘dominant’ versus ‘vulnerability’ versus
‘resilience’, see Phillips, et al. 2010, p. 13). Such increasing diversity of theory has become
associated with ‘ideal type’ approaches drawn from the social sciences. Of significance here are
‘the technocratic approach’ and ‘the socially constructed approach’. Alexander (2002, pp. 212-
213) notes that this is an apparent contest between approaches and, crucially for our purposes in
this study, translates into broad theoretical, but also practical, contests between organisations
operating under the auspices of the nation state on the one hand and communities utilising social
capital on the other.
State Organisational Disaster Management
Understandably, disaster management literature has been built upon practice which has arisen
from the state as the primary source of disaster management. The role of the state is grounded in
a legitimate responsibility built into political systems to protect life and property. There is a
concomitant legitimate authority vested in the state through government to give effect to that
responsibility. This is overlayed by the reasonable assumption that natural disasters require
extraordinary powers and methods of management in the sense that authority takes forms that are
deemed to be more directive and enforcing than are roles in non-emergency situations, even if
they are at the expense of the established rights of citizens. Thus, there are the theoretical
elements of bureaucracy, assumptions as to the efficacy of authority and formal structures and
processes associated with militaristic models of control and a predisposition to technological
determinism which have come to comprise the foundation of disaster management (Alexander
2002; Lindell, Prater and Perry 2007; Phillips et al. 2010).
In broad terms, approaches which to varying degrees fit under such an umbrella, enshrine the
goals associated with improving disaster management without compromising the theoretical
approach or the authority and rationality of organisations which are forced to deal with the
practicality of disasters. In practice then, disaster management organisations, charged with
fulfilling the principal function of protecting life and property, behave as institutions. This
practice-driven approach and the attendant literature, remains dominant in terms of the politics
behind disaster management, including resourcing, training and application of ideas. This
remains its strength. One branch of the literature, not uncritically, deals with extensions of the
approach in order to have adaptations to the inevitability and unpredictability of disasters
incorporated into practice [e.g. enhanced technological systems (Islam and Chik 2011),
identification of flood-prone regions (Pielke 2000), improvement in management systems
including human resource development (Emdad Haque 2003), flood hazard mapping (Osti,
Tanaka and Tokioka 2008) and the economics of flooding (Freebairn 2006; Crompton and
McAneney 2008; Prosser and Peters 2010). That this overall approach continues to be the basis
for practice was reflected in the aftermath of floods in eastern Australia in 2011. The Queensland
State Government established an inquiry to identify lessons learnt and improvements in planning.
The approach was reflected in the terms of reference (see Queensland Floods Commission of
Inquiry). However, much of the emergent literature is critical of the approach, at least as it
stands, and is so in various forms beginning with Hewitt’s (1983) human ecology critique (see,
for example, Cannon 2000 and Alexander 2002).
Social Capital
The established literature on social capital reflects a widespread argument that modern society
has become more segmented in terms of a normative order and less cohesive in terms of a set of
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INGHAM ET AL.: EVIDENCE OF ADAPTATION TO FLOODING
values. In general, social capital refers to the structures, processes and cultures that generate and
maintain trust, cooperation and cohesion. Such characteristics of any society, while they take
different forms, tend to include formal and informal organisations, are participatory and
voluntary - as opposed to purely market-based - and are network-based rather than within
established and orthodox functional structures. There is now an established foundation of social
capital within sociology and there has been a development of it theoretically and empirically
(Portes 1998).
One significant argument or assumption is that social capital is collective by nature, and as
such is intrinsically of more value in building and maintaining a normative order because of the
underpinning of agreement, while institutions have to be underpinned by authority. However,
there is also ‘bad’ social capital, particularly in organisational forms such as authoritarian
decision-making, exclusionary practices (e.g. sexist and racist closure) and illegitimate objectives
and behaviour (e.g. organised crime). To some extent, the literature implies that social capital has
untapped potential and is ‘good’. Institutions, by contrast, were once ‘good’ but have become
weakened to the extent that they have shed much of that potential and lack equivalent potential.
Overall, a foundation for the efficacy of social capital has been cast in relation to developing
countries through its role in economic development (Woolcock and Narayan 2000).
Following Hewitt (1983), there has been an expansion of theoretical approaches to disaster
management which have in common a critique of ‘the technocratic’ and related approaches, and
the putting forward of alternative approaches which are based upon the role of communities
(Cannon 2000). Overall, social capital has come to be viewed as having considerable potential in
disaster management in general and specific applications (Mathbor 2007; Osti, et. al. 2008;
Zakour 2008; Yamamura 2010).
While much of the disaster literature has moved in the direction of social capital or socially
constructed approaches (see for example, Hewitt 1998; Tierney 2007; Norris, et. al. 2007) which
enhance community as the primary source of anticipated, credible and valued practice and
possibly theory as opposed to the state, this emphasis is not unproblematic. The existence of state
and community as actors in disaster management gives rise to a diversity of relationships which
can be complementary, substitutional and conflictual. Some of the literature is attempting to
move away from the state-community, and ‘technocratic-socially constructed’ dichotomies
towards integration, as approaches to disaster management (Golpalakrishnan and Okada 2007)
and as a wider context of economic development (Woolcock and Narayan 2000).
Thus it is possible to view the institutional and social approaches to disaster management as
two extremes of a continuum. Any given disaster situation will exhibit a mixture of both
institutional and social responses and can be represented by a point on this continuum. Where
there is a relatively even spread of activity between the two constructs, we would expect that the
interaction between the two would be dominated by complementary relationships. Where activity
is strongly biased to either the institutional or the social, we might expect either substitutionary
or conflictual relationships to dominate. Further, it might reasonably be expected that
relationships will change over time along with changing circumstances and responses to them.
Where the relationships are complementary, and therefore reinforcing, we would expect the
quality of activity to improve overtime. Where relationships are substitutionary or conflictual, the
effectiveness of action may well show a decline over time and lead to a decline in resilience. The
purpose of the research discussed in this paper is to identify the process by which flooding in
Bangladesh is currently managed and to critically evaluate the principal dimensions of the
process and the different approaches to managing flooding and how they might be changing. The
current research seeks to answer three questions: (1) What is the extent of the integration
between state, NGOs and community in the response to flooding in the case of Bangladesh in
each of the three phases of preparation, response and recovery? (2) To what extent can the
activities of each group be seen to be complementary, a substitute or creating conflict in any
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existing integrated relationship? (3) How is the ongoing adaptation to flooding impacting on
response, and therefore on the maintenance, of resilience?
Methodology
The goal of the research was to understand how respondents perceived their community’s
reaction to flood events in terms of state response, NGO response, community response and
integrated response. The research therefore required, first an understanding of the region and the
major flood related issues drawn from secondary data and second, the collection of data based on
a qualitative, interpretivist methodology in recognition of the fact that a variety of interpretations
of events and of their underlying causes was possible. Such an approach necessitated the
development of a rapport between the researchers and the respondents. Thus the interviews were
conducted with the participants (often villagers and village elders) in the village and in the
presence of the community. Such an ethnographic approach enabled responses to be
contextualised through the use of independent notes taken by the researchers. The open
endedness of the research instrument also permitted the research direction to evolve. As this was
a qualitative research project, semi-structured interviews were utilised to gather data from three
regions which were selected for their broad differentiated geographical features which were the
subject of flooding, that is to say flooding from different sources and/or consequences as
discussed below. The initial interview questions were devised from the relevant literature, in
particular the key concepts of substitutional, complementary and conflictual. To this were added
questions seeking clarification, identification of causes and effects, patterns of facts and
interpretation of meanings and the significance of these. The follow-up questions were
unstructured and sought to add data about the process of flooding, particularly the different
phases and approaches to managing floods as a process.
The aim of this selection was to attempt to identify differences and similarities of
geographic, economic and social characteristics and community approaches to flooding. Twelve
villages were selected with at least two in each region. In all, approximately thirty interviews
were conducted. Since interviewees were drawn from government and community organisations,
villagers and people employed by or having experience with non-government organisations
(NGOs), there was in some cases an overlap (an individual may have been interviewed as a
villager and as an NGO employee, for example). The structure of the government disaster
response hierarchy is depicted in Table 1.
Table 1: Structure of the Bangladesh Disaster Response Hierarchy
Government level Prime person members
National Secretary (SEC) Government, NGO’s and civil society
District District
Commissioner
(DC); the DC has
responsibility for
about four UNO’s
Government, NGOs and civil society
Upazila Upa-zila Nirbahi
Officer (UNO)
Govt, NGOs and civil society, led by government
Union Council
(sometimes called
Union Parishad, or
UP)
UP Chairman
(sometimes a
woman); this is a
community elected
position
No government people are on this council,
although according to Mustafa the chairman, by
virtue of their administrative position, belongs to
local government (elected directly by people)
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INGHAM ET AL.: EVIDENCE OF ADAPTATION TO FLOODING
The data was collected by two of the authors, one of whom is fluent on the native language
of the participants. Responses to questions were recorded (translated when necessary) and then
transcribed by the researchers. A separate record of observations by the researchers was kept as
notes for later referral as is appropriate for ethnographic research. This practice of memoing also
served to ensure that an appropriate iteration of the data was undertaken as the data was
reviewed, assisting in the verification of findings.
The transcripts and researchers’ notes then underwent a process of data reduction with
similar topics being coded so that similarly coded passages, by the same respondent and across
respondents, could be considered at the same time. Once coded, responses underwent a process
of abstraction in order to combine categories that appeared to belong together and of comparison
in order to understand the similarities and difference occurring in the responses. Selective coding
was used in order to build information on our three themes of preparation, response and recovery.
The verification of our data relied, to a large extent, on this iterative process. However, emic
validity was also important to the extent that different groups interviewed were asked to discuss
findings derived from previous interviews with other participants and allowed the qualitative
investigative procedure to evolve. In addition, an element of triangulation was possible as each of
the five researchers (from different research backgrounds) independently analysed the data and
the data was drawn from respondents with quite varied backgrounds. The reflections of the
researchers, particularly the two researchers who undertook the field work, were regarded as an
invaluable source of data.
During 2010, research was undertaken in 12 villages in three regions of Bangladesh, the
regions being in different geographic parts of Bangladesh (the northern plains at the foothills of
the Assam Mountains in India’s Meghalaya state, the central lowlands area and the southern
coastal area). Table 2 provides a summary of the locations dates and times of interviews.
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Table 2: Activity chart of Data Collection, Bangladesh.
SUNAMGANJ
28 Nov Meeting with staff of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the
Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme (CDMP) including their Director
General.
29 Nov Planning meetings with local research assistants.
30 Nov Interview with United Nations Organisation (UNO) Upzilla Nirbahi Officer
Interview with UNO Sunamganj Sada Officer
1 Dec Travel by speedboat to 3 remote hatis in southern Taipur
Hati 1: Patabuka: Interview of Union Member with translation by RA.
Hati 2: Selalitahirpur: Interview of village group.
Hati 3: Golabari: Interview with village group.
Interview with worker in the Centre for Natural Resource Studies, a local non-
government organisation (NGO)
2 Dec Gobindapur, 15 minutes from Sunamganj. Interviews with a social worker, a village
elder and the lady Chairman.
3 Dec Kaikkarpar: Interview with village group.
Interview with worker from Community management disaster Risk Reduction Project
(CMDPRP) and Voluntary Assistance for Rural Development (VARD).
4, 5 Dec Return to Dhaka.
SIRAJGANJ
6 Dec Left Dhaka for Sirajganj and arrived at National Disaster Prevention (NDP) training
centre and lodgings. NDP is an NGO. Interview with Director.
7 Dec Khokshabari Natun Para: Interview with a (female) Union Council Member.
8 Dec Stholchor: Interview with villager.
Chowhali: Interview with UNO representative.
Chowhali: Interviewed the Union Chairman.
Choddoroshi: Interview with Khaskawlia Union representative.
MUNSINGANJ
12 Dec Chakbara: Interviewed Gabura Union Council member
Garkumarpur: Interviewed Padmapukur Union interviewed villagers
Padmapukur: Same name as the Union, interviewed Union Council Chairman.
Interview with two workers from Shushilan Training Center.
13 Dec Vishnupur: interview with villager.
14 Dec Interviewed UNO of the Shamnager District/ Upazilla
Findings
While there is some dispute as to the identification and conceptualisation of the phases of
disasters, much of the literature reflects the assumptions of policy and practice and generally
proceeds on the basis that there are at least three broad phases: preparation for disasters; response
during them and recovery from them. Our research approach and broad categorisation of our
findings follows this approach.
Preparation
Content analyses of our interviews and researcher notes indicated that the preparatory phase
involved the principal issues of warnings, minimising flood levels through embankment-building
and dredging, and provision for evacuation and post-evacuation periods. Warnings may take
various forms and derive from various sources. They include official warnings from state
authorities such as meteorological forecasts and announcements through broadcasting. In general
16
INGHAM ET AL.: EVIDENCE OF ADAPTATION TO FLOODING
and despite access to electricity (including battery sources), official warnings coming through
communication systems were regarded as not being disseminated widely, not timely and not
reliable in each of the three areas studied.
The predominant effective form of warning in all areas derived from local experience and an
understanding of weather - the sky, wind and the level and velocity of water. There was also
evidence, in all three areas, of a failure of cooperation between the villagers and the Government.
The established state (national and/or district) communication systems were often treated with
scepticism by the villagers and the Government often used the warning systems for their own
purposes. For example, during cyclone Aila, a level 4 warning was issued in order not to panic
the public (stay and defend) and came in as Level 7 (evacuate) way too late – the place was
flooded by then.
In all areas, government officials interviewed consistently referred to the existence of
government plans for flooding events. However, many also admitted that their implementation
depended on the provision of scarce resources. In the villages and surrounding areas in this study,
the principal forms of preparation were dredging rivers and constructing embankments to prevent
flood waters from invading and damaging and destroying crops, stock and buildings. In some
case, embankments were built by villagers out of bamboo but regardless of the material,
maintaining the strength of embankments was seen to be difficult. For this, government
assistance was required and this was frequently not forthcoming. Exacerbating this problem was
the fact the when government did act, it was reluctant to take the advice of locals, who, although
lacking the resources to undertake the building of sophisticated infrastructure, considered they
had an excellent understanding of the best places for barriers to be constructed.
There was little evidence of extensive evacuation planning. However, in some villages there
was the expectation that boats would be used to evacuate people to higher ground. There
appeared to be a community body of knowledge, based upon experience, as opposed to extensive
government planning, that there were exit routes by road to reach higher ground, particularly
sections of roads where people then lived for weeks or months.
The related aspect of preparation is the provision of buildings, particularly public buildings
such as schools, for shelter until flood levels recede. In a few cases, these were accompanied by
community, government and NGO provision of stored food. However, other material,
particularly firewood for cooking food, cooking pots, clothes and livestock, seemed mainly to be
moved and distributed by the people and assisted by government and NGOs after the flooding.
In the National Disaster Plan all NGOs have to ‘filter’ their plans and funding through the
national level, but we found that some NGOs were frustrated with the delays caused by this
process and were initiating strategies and providing funding from the ground level, and that local
villagers had more trust in the NGOs engaged in this practice rather than the national filtering
system, which siphoned off funding and somehow lost impetus in the journey down to the grass
roots level.
Response
Regardless of the forms and extent of preparation, the second phase of disaster management
starts at the time that the disaster occurs. Clearly, determining this point precisely is a matter of
judgement, but it involves moving from a state of preparation to an acceptance that a disaster has
begun or is inevitable, triggering an active response. One should keep in mind the fact that the
concept of preparedness in Bangladesh does not match that in the West. The forms that response
takes are in part influenced by preparation structures, systems and practices. In Bangladesh,
preparation is very basic and the requisite features of preparation do not exist in forms which
permit viable responses. Our research findings suggest that the imminence of a flood induces
immediate decisions by people acting together to protect buildings, equipment, livestock, crops
and life and/or to evacuate to safer areas.
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A clear priority was to make food supplies continuing as in severe conditions home-based
food preparation facilities (availability of cookers, fire wood and raw materials) are hampered.
This was important, regardless of staying in or near the village or evacuating. Food aid was
provided in some cases and the sources were government, NGOs, ‘rich people’ and union
officials who seemed to be in positions of authority in relation to distribution. However, across
all three regions, the main assistance was provided by the people themselves. When evacuation
was necessary, it was primarily organised by the people and was by boat or foot to shelters,
particularly schools or other buildings provided by the government or to the houses of relatives.
Again, food was viewed as critical and was either taken with the evacuees or provided, in very
limited amounts, in shelters or through government or NGOs. The range of time in shelters was 2
to 12 weeks. To the extent that there was evidence of officially organised responses, it seemed to
be mainly from union committees.
Recovery
In the aftermath of flooding, the final phase consists of rebuilding private physical assets and
public infrastructure. This is generally seen as the most important aspect of recovery, particularly
so that people can return to their homes and public goods and services are repaired and/or
replaced so as to return life to pre-flooding conditions. Rebuilding also re-establishes livelihoods.
Rebuilding houses was largely the responsibility of the people. However, there were some
sources of assistance, mainly through provision of building materials. These primarily arrived
through NGOs, either directly to villagers or distributed through union councils. Provision of
food, clean drinking water and medicines came from government or NGO sources. Some
buildings were replaced but others were not.
A key aspect of rebuilding when disasters take the form of floods and earthquakes is that the
land may no longer exist. This is a frequent occurance throughout the three areas of our study.
Land becomes inaccessible for many years and typically ownership issues arise because of the
loss of documentation during the intervening years. Clearly, livelihoods were interrupted,
sometimes for months, because flood waters did not always recede quickly and people who have
evacuated cannot return to their villages and farms. Government and NGO payments and food
distribution assisted in sustaining people until they could resume their work. In re-establishing
livelihoods, NGOs were also involved in the supply of seed, fertilizer and small loans. People
could also receive support from relatives and sell assets
Adaptation
One of the key findings of the research was the evidence of how the people, over time, have been
adapting in a variety of ways to their experience of flooding and the resulting changing nature of
the Bangladeshi economy. Given the geography of Bangladesh, the frequency of flooding and the
damage done to life and livelihoods, recovery in the forms of constructing or repairing homes
and other buildings and re-establishing farms to the point where they can produce at sufficient
levels to sustain producers and provide a platform for local economies, may be temporary.
Therefore, in pursuit of a more reliable basis for their livelihoods, it was found that people adapt,
principally by changing what they produce and by migrating to other areas of Bangladesh. For
farmers, this tended to be as ‘day labourers’. Earlier research found that people were seeking to
increase income by shifting from farming to other occupations which involved internal and
external migration (Nargis and Hossain 2006). In addition, Khandker (2009) argues that
improvements in infrastructure, access to micro-credit and increased mobility in labour markets,
has reduced the seasonal fluctuation in rural income. Diversity of income sources seems to
provide a more consistent income flow and Khandker argues should be supported by an
extension of a range of infrastructure and transfer payment policies.
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INGHAM ET AL.: EVIDENCE OF ADAPTATION TO FLOODING
Apart from migration, the other form of adaptation to emerge from the research was shifting
from crops and livestock to shrimp farming. Alauddin and Hamid (1999) note the ‘remarkable
expansion of shrimp farming’ but also its social and environmental costs. While it was
recognised by those interviewed that, unlike rice farming, shrimp farming was certain to produce
a result, there was clearly a cost. Although shrimp farming moved land usage from subsistence
agriculture to a market oriented activity it created a number of problems. The first was that the
ability of the population to feed itself was reduced – subsistence crops were not being grown.
The second was that the processes of shrimp farming – which involved putting holes in the levies
to provide access to sea water (necessary for the survival of the shrimp) – weakened the integrity
of the levies and made them more liable to collapse in time of flood. Thus the shrimp farms were
seen by many local officials to be against the short-term interests of the non-shrimp farmers but
also, in the long-run, against the interests of the shrimp farmers themselves.
Discussion
Our research results indicate that the state purports to play a role in all three phases of flooding.
However, notwithstanding the preparation and documentation of flood plans, the stated intentions
of the national government fail to be implemented at lower levels because of both a lack of
understanding of the functions expected at each level and a lack of resources necessary for flood
plan implementation. The main deficiency during the preparation phase is the lack of
infrastructure provision. Where infrastructure is provided, there is a marked lack of cooperation
and coordination between government organisations and locals to ensure that any infrastructure
provided is located to the best advantage. NGOs endeavour to provide assistance to villagers, but
they are also restricted in what they can do both by lack of funding and by government
regulations. Thus, preparation is poor and largely restricted to activities villagers can undertake
using their own resources.
Similar issues arise with respect to the response during a flood. For example, there is a lack
of infrastructure to evacuate people from the most threatened parts of the country. State
organisations such as the armed forces, police or a specific disaster management organisation do
not appear to be able to evacuate people by roads and rivers on a widespread and consistent
basis. Thus the principal form of response is collective, with villagers assisting each other to
evacuate. This generally involved transporting people by boat and walking in groups to higher
ground to get to roads which were likely to be elevated and thus safer. It was clear that there was
sufficient trust and established relations between families to organise and engage in evacuation.
In a few cases, this was supplemented by village leaders and union council members organising
evacuation routes and arranging for buildings to be made available for shelters. In this sense, the
clear line between state disaster management organisation at the village level and social capital
emanating from within villages to respond to floods was to some extent blurred – although any
response was clearly dependent on the latter.
In general, the evidence we gathered suggested that social capital was especially prominent
during the response phase compared with the preparation and recovery phases. Indeed, this was
necessary given that there was certainly less state disaster management organisation in the
response phase than in those other phases. That is, in the response phase, there was little in the
way of structures, systems and resources from government.
The government’s role in recovery was also significantly flawed. Apart from some repair
and rebuilding in relation to infrastructure and replacement of lost resources necessary for
farming, particularly seed, the government’s role was virtually non-existent in the recovery
phase. The evidence indicates that in recovery, villagers were largely left to their own devices
and to any assistance that could be provided by NGOs.
In summary, throughout the three phases, our findings confirmed that unlike some developed
countries where disaster management is largely if not totally conducted by government and
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government-funded voluntary organisations, disaster management in Bangladesh was primarily a
social response with some of the ‘gaps’ created by the failure of government to act being covered
by NGOs.
It appears that the key manifestations to managing floods in Bangladesh reflect a patchwork
of complementarity, substitution and conflict – but with the latter two tending to predominate.
Where government provided some of the infrastructure, for example large projects such as
building roads, embankments and dredging, it theoretically served as a complementary form of
the state-community relationship. However, this was inadequate and the complementarity
became or remained thin. Local knowledge of weather patterns is substituted for state warning
systems, social capital substitutes for the provision of state infrastructure, resources from NGOs
substitute for resources from state authorities. Indeed, the state-NGO relationship was
predominantly substitutional because villagers viewed the state and NGOs as alternative sources
of disaster management. Regardless of them being, or appearing to be, competitors, to move
from being substitutes to parts of a rational process in which the activities they undertook were
held to be complementary, would require overcoming the absence of clearly defined roles which
was found by Matin and Taher’s (2001) study of disaster management in Bangladesh.
Substitution may well be a viable form of relationship, but beyond clear roles there still needs to
be coordination within a planning and operational framework.
In connecting state and NGO organisational disaster management to social capital within
communities, the findings here indicate that the relationship at times became conflictual. This
seemed to arise because of distrust of the state and it came through the interviews in various
forms and particularly through all three phases.
That people in communities have developed a sufficiency of trust, building networks outside
of disasters and reciprocity was evident and could reasonably be said to have assisted in
established social capital such that it was activated especially during the response phases of
flooding, that is to say when it was most needed. However, this did not appear to be a static
situation.
As migration and changes to agricultural practices continue as part of the villagers’
adaptation to flooding, they are resulting in a decline in community resilience which, in the past,
has depended on relationships and cooperation between neighbours. Both forms of adaptation
have the consequence of weakening social capital and, because of the importance of social
capital in responding to flooding found in our research, will make communities more vulnerable
to future flooding. That is, one implication of these adaptations is the questioning of the potential
for social capital to remain in forms which are compatible with mutual assistance when
confronted by floods.
Exacerbating this trend is the fact that in the light of the costs of dealing with flooding in the
extensive, frequent and repetitive forms that it takes in Bangladesh, it is tempting for
governments to support relocation or changes to land use rather than attempt to minimise
flooding effects through the expenditure on large embankment and dredging projects. It is here
that the relationship between the state and local communities can be expressed in conflictual
terms.
Conclusion
The findings of this study indicate that there is explanatory value in following flooding as a
process of three phases. There is also value in comparing the relative importance of state
organisational disaster management with that of a socially constructed approach which
emphasises the role of social capital. In Bangladesh, and in the preparation phase, the evidence
indicates a deficiency of government in economic, but probably also political, resources to
construct, maintain and repair necessary infrastructure, particularly embankments and dredging.
There is also a significant weakness in warning systems and government evacuation planning. To
20
INGHAM ET AL.: EVIDENCE OF ADAPTATION TO FLOODING
some extent this is mitigated by community preparation assisted by NGOs as a substitute for
government action although, to a limited extent there is a complementary provision of minor
services by the government. However, in the response phase, the state is frequently absent with
the local communities almost entirely reliant on the existence of social capital in their battle
against flooding. In the recovery phase, there is again some mixing of approaches in practice but
as with the preparation phase, the state does not generate and organise adequate resources to
rebuild communities. While the people can do some of the necessary recovery themselves, they
are very dependent on the complementary role of the NGOs which substitute for government.
Our research also established that there is a process of adaptation occurring through all three
phases, importantly in terms of developing resilient livelihoods. This is reflected in migration to
areas where new or extended livelihoods can be practiced and made less susceptible to risk. It
may involve resettlement such that people do not return to their villages. Where people remain in
or near their villages, the adaptation may involve changing to different farm products, methods
and different types of occupations, which to some degree seems to diversify yet also make less
volatile their income.
However, this adaptation also came at a cost in that it appears to be working to break down
the social capital that has been built up and which, in the absence of an adequate government
response to flooding events, underpins the resilience of the community in the face of flooding
catastrophes.
Even at a generalised level across the sources of data collection, particularly villages in the
three different districts, we could only record a diversity of relationships between government
organisations on the one hand and people on the other. These were reflected in episodes of
complementarity where cooperation and coordination were apparent but more often there
appeared to be gaps (i.e. steps missing from processes) or bottlenecks (i.e. an excess of planning
but unconnected to implementation). This was exhibited in substitution as a type of relationship,
where people provided the missing step which ideally could have been provided by government.
However, the other dimension to this was the substitution of government disaster management by
NGOs. At times, it appeared that the government, people and NGOs became entangled in conflict
without resolution because of the inadequacy of resources to establish a sustainable relationship.
Some of the literature on response to disasters is pointing to a more integrated approach
which would result in improved policy, systems and practice. Some empirical work indicates a
diversity of forms such as the need to address institutional weakness in the US after Hurricane
Katrina by implementing ‘integrated disaster risk management’ (Gopalakrishnan and Okada
2007) and the effectiveness of physical equipment and infrastructure on the one hand and
cooperative behaviour in different ‘sized’ disasters on the other (Yamamura 2010). Zakour’s
(2008) US study suggests the importance of network relationships, mainly at interorganisational
level, to promote the flow of resources such as transportation. Similarly, Keogh et al’s (2011)
study of a small community in Australia which exhibited developed social capital within the
town yet the resilience, it is argued, could be enhanced by the development of specific factors to
improve the disaster management process. Debates will continue but the point - albeit in a wider
development context - is useful: no person or institution has the resources to promote
development, so complementarities and partnerships across different parts of a society are needed
(Woolcock and Narayan 2000, p. 229). In Bangladesh, this calls for greater government action,
the provision of additional resources and the development of strategies to ensure that the
integrated response of government, NGOs and the people is increasingly complementary rather
than substitutary or conflictual.
We are aware of the limitation surrounding our interpretation of data, in terms of
triangulating the various academic perspectives of the researchers involved- these being based in
emergency management, economics and social and community psychology. There were a
number of understandings, reported and unreported, in this particular paper, which we
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synthesized into common ground. Our interpretation and reporting can serve to inspire
researchers with other perspectives.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Valerie Ingham: Lecturer, Course Coordinator, Australian Graduate School of Policing and
Security, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia
Dr. Mir Rabiul Islam: Lecturer, School of Psychology, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, New
South Wales, Australia
Prof. John Hicks: Professor, School of Business, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, New South
Wales, Australia
Ian Manock: Lecturer, Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security, Charles Sturt
University, Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia
Dr. Richard Sappey: Adjunct, School of Business, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, New
South Wales, Australia
23
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies is one of eight thematically focused journals in the collection of journals that support the Interdisciplinary Social Sciences knowledge community—its journals, book series, conference and online community.
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies offers social science-based interpretations and interdisciplinary explorations of the connections between human and natural environments.
As well as papers of a traditional scholarly type, this journal invites case studies that take the form of presentations of practice—including documentation of socially-engaged practices and exegeses analyzing the effects of those practices.
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.
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