Community resilience and social capital in view of local climate adaptation (1/2)

Abstract der Sitzung

The notions of social capital, and community resilience building have been deployed in a wide range of geographical contexts. However, when it comes to pending climate challenges, community resilience builds the necessary precondition to address local adaptation needs. Social capital provides the basis to the understanding of social, political and cultural components of climate action in the respective local environments and their resilience. Addressing planning, governance and implementation related aspects of regional processes, the session aims to gain deeper insights into forms of local social capital and community resilience building. Also, their contribution to adaptation and place making in the context of climate vulnerabilities shall be discussed. With climate adaptation approaches highlighting capacity (e. g. financial, technical, institutional) and capability building (e. g. access, participation and learning) for successful implementation, the perspective towards social capital allows to entangle both, while offering important insights into community resilience building and local climate action.

Therefore, considering the still rather limited knowledge on climate resilience building with regards to local adaptation and community capital, the session focusses on urban spaces examining 1) the approaches to climate adaptation in vulnerable urban communities, 2) the leverages and pathways towards local resilience building and the strengthening of social capital, and 3) the methods in assessing urban resilience building and climate adaptation.

We invite contributions on emerging economies but also highly welcome other research that address these issues in a range of various contexts and in relation to all geographical categories. Also, we welcome papers that examine these topics in conceptual, methodological and/or empirical contexts.