Can Community Resettlement be Considered a Resilient Move? Insights from a Slow-Onset Disaster in the Colombian Andes. Issue 5 (3rd May 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Staupe-Delgado, Reidar
• Is Part Of: Journal of development studies. Volume 56:Issue 5(2020)
• Page Start: 1017
• Page End: 1029
• Publication Date: 2020-05-03
• Subjects: Economic development -- Periodicals; Economic history -- 1945- -- Periodicals; Developing countries -- Economic conditions -- Periodicals; Développement économique -- Périodiques; Histoire économique -- 1945- -- Périodiques; Pays en voie de développement -- Conditions économiques -- Périodiques; 338.91
• DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2019.1626836
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-0388

Abstract

Abstract: The degree to which communities can best withstand various forms of external stress, as well as what constitutes community resilience has been a matter of debate in discussions of development, resilience building, adaptation and transformation. Drawing on insights from a field expedition to the indigenous reserve of Aponte in the Colombian Andes, this paper engages with the concept of transformational- and community resilience and problematizes the concept focusing particularly on its tendency to assume that disasters are one-off, sudden events that allow for sustainable recovery in their aftermath. Aponte faces complete ruination by a slow-onset geological hazard which has prompted discussions of relocation among other solutions – raising questions of whether and how resilience can be understood in the context of perpetually worsening conditions of environmental change.