Risk and Resilience in the coastal Caribbean

Resilience is central to the current development agenda and underpins approaches to disaster risk reduction. Fundamentally, resilience is about the ability of communities to predict, resist and absorb the impact of environmental hazards, so that they can continue to function as successful societies. The frequency and severity of environmental hazards, such as floods and droughts, are increasing in many LMICs, where environmental degradation (like water and soil pollution) can make recovery from such impacts more prolonged, and affect particularly the most vulnerable in society, such as the poor, the old or marginalised ethnic groups, who lack the social, economic and political capital that underpins resilience. It is particularly important, therefore, to understand how to build resilience in and for poorer communities to ensure that they are less vulnerable to environmental risks in the future. One important factor that influences a community's response to environmental risk is the way it has developed over time. Equally, a community's cultural traditions shape how they understand and frame resilience and any strategies they adopt to become more resilient.
However, most research on resilience focusses on the now and the future and fails to take account of the importance of past events and responses and a community's cultural traditions and resources. For this reason, this network will bring together arts and humanities scholars with environmental, physical and social scientists, who work on the resilience of socio-ecological systems (SESs). It builds on two NERC/AHRC/ESRC (GCRF)-funded 'Building Resilience' projects, which have pioneered innovative, cross-disciplinary approaches to explore how environmental histories, governance and culture have interacted in making Caribbean coastal environments and their communities more or less resilient in the face of man-made and natural disasters. The network will focus on the coastal Caribbean, an area experiencing numerous and increasing environmental risks, including rising sea levels and more and fiercer tropical storms that affect especially the most vulnerable in society.
The first event hosted by the network will bring together a multi-disciplinary group of UK and locally-based scholars, who work on the coastal Caribbean and/or environmental resilience, with external stakeholders from within the region to debate the concept resilience from different disciplinary angles; discuss the key challenges in developing environmental resilience in coastal Caribbean communities; and assess cross-disciplinary approaches that will allow for a comprehensive study of these challenges. They will single out three main challenges, which small interdisciplinary teams led by an external stakeholder will develop into proposals for either further study or specific development initiatives that will be discussed at a second event hosted in the region and attended not just by the teams but also interested local and regional agencies and organisations and researchers. Following feedback received at this event, the proposals will be written up and posted on the network's website and a policy brief highlighting the insights that arts and humanities can bring to an understanding of resilience will be made freely-accessible on the website of the Overseas Development Institute(ODI), the UK's leading think tank on international development. In addition, the experiences of working in a cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral network to develop effective proposals to enhance environmental resilience will be shared with other academics and external stakeholders through panels and roundtables at academic conferences and a freely-accessible paper on the History&Policy website.

Strengthening resilience to climate-related hazards is a key objective of the SDGs and national environmental action plans of Caribbean countries, especially with regards to coastal areas which are affected by numerous and increasing natural and man-made hazards. This cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral project is well-placed to inform policies and practices aimed to strengthen resilience in the face of environmental risk and can thus significantly benefit local communities in the Circum-Caribbean. It has two key impact objectives: 1) to produce a set of proposals for either specific development initiatives or novel interdisciplinary studies that address three major challenges in enhancing resilience in the coastal Caribbean. 2) to write a policy brief setting out the new information and perspectives that arts and humanities researchers can bring to the study of resilience and the development of initiatives to enhance it. The three challenges underpinning the proposals will be defined by members of the network at a first meeting in the UK in January 2018. The proposals will be presented at a second local meeting in August 2018. By making them freely accessible on the network's website in English and Spanish, the proposals can be used by regional and national organisations concerned with implementing environmental resilience agendas.
The policy brief will be uploaded onto the website of the ODI. By sharing a link to this brief with their professional contacts, members of the network will ensure that the insights about the benefits of cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral work on environmental risk and resilience will be shared widely and can inform work on other geographical contexts.
The CI has worked extensively on resilience in the coastal Caribbean and collaborated with many international, regional and national stakeholders, including the organisations listed below. These organisation have agreed for one of their staff to attend the first workshop and lead interdisciplinary teams that will draw up the proposals and also to share the project's findings through their professional networks. The CI will also use her contacts to invite high-level policy makers and key agencies and institutions within the region to the second event, where the proposals will be presented. This event will convey to relevant organisations the benefits of working with a wider range of academics and may generate new collaborative projects between (UK-based and regional) researchers and (I)NGOs, including the implementation of the set of specific proposals and development of other, new resilience-building initiatives.
Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (Barbados): CDEMA is the regional inter-governmental agency for disaster management in the Caribbean Community. In addition to active disaster management, it is concerned with developing adaptation and resilience strategies to reduce the risk associated with natural hazards and effects of climate change.
Grupo Laera (Colombia): It provides advisory services on vulnerability and climate change. A member of the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership, it has links with various environmental and development organisations, including the World Bank, which gives the project a broader global outreach.
Regional branch International Federation Red Cross and Red Cress Societies (Trinidad): The IFRC works actively with civil society organizations, local government, regional organizations, the private sector and academic institutions to develop adaptation strategies to deal with the impact of climate change in vulnerable communities.
Disaster Risk Reduction Centre (Jamaica): The DRRC works with numerous local, regional and international partners. Especially its partnerships with regional agencies, such as the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency, will ensure that the project's outputs reach those responsible for developing and implementing resilience projects in the region.