Rethinking climate resilience planning by understanding the legacy of interventions in food production systems Edmond Totin, National University of Agriculture, Benin

Event details

YESI International Fellows Seminar 

There is a consensus among climate scholars about the implications of increasing weather and climate extreme events for many human and natural systems. In these conditions, adaptation measures are rapidly needed across sectors and scales to address climate challenges. This common assumption considers that “planned” adaptation interventions are desirable to stimulate changes. This generic framing ignores the agencies of local communities, who have the capacity to mould, reject or change introduced interventions to fit their needs and aspirations, which are not always fully captured by external development agents.

This research will explore how community members engage with introduced adaptation interventions. We combine our understanding of the contexts in which adaptation and resilience play out and build on the analytical frames of institutional bricolage and political capability. Drawing on this framework, we conceptualize community responses to planned/introduced adaptation interventions as a complex process that implies deploying strategies and renegotiating agendas to meet local needs. We will assess this through a critical review of the outcomes of introduced interventions to reduce climate vulnerability in Africa.

We will document specifically (i) how communities respond to introduced climate-related interventions which are supposed to reduce climate risk and vulnerability; (ii) the contextual background of the implementation of the cases - adaptation or resilience-building actions and (iii) agencies of community members in this process.

About the speaker

Edmond TOTIN is working as a sociologist at the World Vegetable Center. He studies processes of transformative, systemic change towards sustainability and their intersection with everyday social practices. He also has expertise in the management of agricultural innovation, climate adaptation, climate governance, and science-policy nexus.