- Title
- A systems approach to understanding and practising transformative adaptation
- Creator
- Ajulo, Oluwadunsin Moromoke
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Globally, the impacts of hazards are experienced in various ways and to varying degrees, with the coping ability of humans varying likewise. The ability to cope with hazards depends on various physical, social, and economic factors, which when absent create vulnerability to disasters. Disasters are human-created; they are a by-product of hazards coupled with vulnerability. In the field of disaster studies, researchers have recommended that, in order for people to be able to cope with hazards and associated disasters, risk management should go beyond adaptation and move towards transformative adaptation. Transformative adaptation (often shortened to ‘transformation’) is considered a revolutionary concept and has increasingly appeared in the discourse of disaster studies in recent years. It has been used to represent a fundamental and radical change from the status quo, by addressing processes that create vulnerability and seeking bottom-up and long-term changes that can help in reducing vulnerability, especially for the marginalised. Transformative adaptation, as the term is used in disaster studies, focuses on creating new opportunities, and taking advantage of existing opportunities, in the context of disaster events; adaptation of this sort is interconnected, in turn, with a number of social constructs that will be explored in the present study. Indeed, despite increasing interest in the concept of transformation, the overall understanding of its practicability and potential outcomes remains limited. Major gaps in the literature on the subject include the absence of a full, contextualised understanding of how social transformation emerges, and also the lack of empirical research on the system interactions (i.e., interactions among systems of factors) that contribute to such social transformation. Also, because transformative adaptation is associated with radical changes in a community, there is a need for knowledge about how to achieve fail-safe experimentation with social innovations, and hence a need for an appropriate analytical framework and research tools that can help anticipate unexpected consequences of human actions within the environment. To fill these research gaps, the present study aims at understanding transformative adaptation by carrying out an empirical study in Lyttelton, New Zealand, and, on the basis of this research, developing a hybrid model that represents the structure of and relationship among the selected variables and the emergent social transformation. The aim of this case study was achieved by identifying key social transformation variables in the literature, developing a hypothetical conceptual framework for transformative adaptation based on existing approaches in the field, collecting qualitative and quantitative data from primary and secondary sources that were used in exploring and explaining social transformation, developing the hybrid model used in the study, and finally, validating the model. An exploratory, sequential mixed-methods approach was used in this study. Initially, a qualitative study was conducted to explore and understand social transformation within the Lyttelton context. Data were collected in this qualitative phase via interviews that informed the development of a questionnaire. Through a combination of this primary data and secondary data obtained in other studies, indices were developed and used to build the agent-based and system dynamics models. Empirical data were used for validating the model and simulated interventions were carried out. The results of the study show that community organisations played the most significant role in the social transformation within the community. Also, policies and government initiatives that support local action and long-term societal goals are seen to be more valuable than immediate relief responses in achieving social transformation. Results also showed that social transformation cannot be achieved in isolation from other forms of transformation (e.g., political and technological). The hybrid model developed in this study captures the complex system interactions that lead to social transformation. Adoption and further development of this model in future studies on transformation will potentially provide more insight into the practicality of transformation and inform policy decisions that foster positive transformation in other communities. Recommendations are made with respect to policies, funding, collaborations and partnerships, and strategies for encouraging participation in activities that can bring about the desired transformation within communities.
- Subject
- transformative adaptation; transformation; adaptation; disasters
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1421558
- Identifier
- uon:37743
- Rights
- Copyright 2020 Oluwadunsin Moromoke Ajulo
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 5 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
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