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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Local responses to hazards and risks. Resilience in the Richtersveld, South Africa
| Panel |
77. Conceptualizing natural hazards, risks and resilience in Africa
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| Paper ID | 557 |
| Author(s) |
Berzborn, Susanne
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | The proposed paper deals with local responses to hazards and risks in a rural community where long-term ethnographic fieldwork was carried out. The Richtersveld is characterised by a semi-arid environment. The local economy is mainly based on wage labour in the adjacent diamond mines, welfare allowances by the state, and small stock farming.
Chambers (1989) defines vulnerability “[…] as the exposure to contingencies and stress, and the difficulty coping with them.” while the term resilience usually refers only to the second part of his definition, hence to the ability to cope with stress. In addition, resilience implies the ability to recover from damages. Adger (2003) further includes “[…] the ability to adapt” in his definition of resilience. Against the background of those definitions, I will explore the activities performed by local people aiming at coping with hazards and risks inherent in the aforementioned economic activities. In doing so, people always have to adapt to changes in the natural and social environment to take advantage of new opportunities and to cope with new risks and hazards. The results of the analyses show that people in the Richtersveld successfully diversify economic and social resources and strengthen the resilience of their households. But some households – e.g. those with little workforce – are more vulnerable and less able to build up resilience than others. The latter households are mainly composed of older and middle-aged/young adults where old-age pensions and cash income from wage labour are pooled.
I argue that the concept of resilience is helpful in understanding how people make a living under difficult circumstances and how they recuperate from losses. In addition, it sheds light on the differences in local communities. The ability to enhance resilience varies between people and households and is connected to access to material, social and cultural capital, but institutions that organise the pooling and the redistribution of resources on the household level are likewise important.
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