Resilience, Adaptation and Adaptability
Resilience, Adaptation and Adaptability
doi:10.1093/cjres/rsq001
The resilience of places in response to uncertain, volatile and rapid change has emerged as
a focus of academic and policy attention. This paper aims to contribute to understanding
and explaining the resilience of places. Drawing upon evolutionary Economic Geography,
the concepts of adaptation and adaptability are developed in a framework based upon
agents, mechanisms and sites. In contrast to equilibrium-based approaches, this approach
can better capture the geographical diversity, variety and unevenness of resilience and
address questions of what kind of resilience and for whom.
Ó The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.
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Pike et al.
are focused upon adjustment to single or multiple points and foci ranging from the individual to the
equilibria and provide inadequate explanations of spatial. Psychology and psychiatry focus upon the
the geographical differentiation of resilience. Third, individual and their resilience during life course
drawing upon evolutionary work in Economic Ge- transitions and events (Kaplan, 1999). In ecological
ography, we define and develop the concepts of ad- systems, resilience is related to system functioning
aptation and adaptability. A preliminary analytical rather than the stability or otherwise of its compo-
framework based upon agents, mechanisms and sites nent populations and maintenance or loss of steady
is then outlined to demonstrate how adaptation and states (Adger, 2000). For Adger (2000, 347), social
adaptability can deepen our understandings of the resilience is ‘‘. the ability of communities to with-
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Resilience, adaptation and adaptability
and critique of existing approaches because this (2007, 2), for example, note the interest in path
work is being undertaken elsewhere (Foster, dependency to understand ‘‘multiple equilibria
2007a; Pendall et al., 2007; Swanstrom, 2008). In- and the persistence of sub-optimal ones’’. Hill
stead, our focus is on the explanatory weaknesses of et al. (2008, 4) interpret path dependence as predi-
equilibrium-based approaches and their emphasis cated on multiple equilibria ‘‘not all of which are
upon adjustment to single or multiple equilibria. efficient (in a static and/or dynamic sense)’’ and
These approaches are ill-equipped to explain the may lock a regional economy into ‘‘a level or
geographical diversity, variety and unevenness of growth path of economic performance that is sub-
the resilience of places. To date, this type of work optimal’’. For Hill et al. (2008, 4), this ‘‘. sug-
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Pike et al.
leading conceptual and theoretical development marketization’’ towards optimal, equilibrium out-
and analysis in unhelpful ways. comes. Instead, they claim that ‘‘. although such
institutional homogenization might foster adapta-
tion in the short run, the consequent loss of institu-
Insights from evolutionary Economic tional diversity will impede adaptability in the long
Geography run’’. This is because homogenization would limit
Recent work on evolution in Economic Geography ‘‘. the search for effective institutions and orga-
provides ways of tackling the conceptual, theoreti- nizational forms to the familiar Western quadrant of
cal, analytical and political concerns raised by cur- tried and proven arrangements’’ likely to cause neg-
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Resilience, adaptation and adaptability
tolerances to deal with the cognitive uncertainties, timing and nature, rate and duration of change.
economic inefficiencies and political unpopularity For example, episodes when little or nothing
of moving from an established to alternative re- appears to change in a place in a specific time pe-
gional niche. Therefore, on the one hand, adapta- riod are conceived not as stable single or multiple
tion and adaptability may offer contrasting equilibria among phenomena but as relative stasis
explanations for the differentiated resilience of pla- and/or stability within unfolding paths of change.
ces. On the other hand, adaptation and adaptability Further, a temporal distinction between ‘shocks’
might be complementary in explaining how differ- and ‘slow-burn’ disturbances can be made:
ent elements of a region (sectors, labour markets,
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Pike et al.
over time and the blurring between single-event and more novelty and mutation (Grabher and Stark,
process-based change moves our understanding be- 1997, 538). Grabher and Stark (1997, 538) ac-
yond the existing work on resilience that focuses knowledge, however, that loose coupling may not
only on relative changes in pre- and post-shock only be positive for network adaptability because it
economic indicators such as growth and employ- can also ‘‘. result in a cacophony of orientations,
ment. We accept, however, the methodological and perceptions, goals and world-views that confounds
analytical challenges this kind of thinking raises. even minimal cohesiveness’’.
As mechanisms shaping adaptation or adaptabil-
Towards an analytical framework: agents, ity, evolutionary Economic Geography emphasizes
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Resilience, adaptation and adaptability
wholesale upgrading of the economic structure. (see, for example Chapple and Lester, 2007). For the
Such ideas suggest that places can enhance their framework elaborated here, this spatial lens provides
adaptive capacities if they can develop collective an overly narrow view of the diverse and varied
understanding and strategies to recognize and over- geographies of resilience explained by adaptation
come the lock-ins that may be constraining their and adaptability. In considering sites of adaptation
adaptability to disruptive changes. and adaptability, it is useful analytically to explore
Related variety informs mechanisms of adapta- the ongoing tensions between territorial and rela-
tion and adaptability in its focus upon how existing tional views of scales and networks (Hudson,
paths are shaped and how paths are destroyed and 2007; MacLeod and Jones, 2007; Pike, 2007). On
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Pike et al.
return to or exceed their previous path’’. In conceiv- resilience is imbued with American values of heroic
ing of adaptation and adaptability to explain the individualism, self-reliance, distrust in government
geographical differentiation of resilience, our ana- and the need for people and places to demonstrate
lytical framework of agents, mechanisms and sites their resilience in the face of adversity (Pendall
begins to unpack such typologies and addresses the et al., 2007). Indeed, the political construction of
geographically diverse, varied and uneven resil- adaptation and adaptability narratives has become
ience of places. especially important for old industrial regions as
they seek to articulate stories of recovery in the
context of interterritorial competition for invest-
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Resilience, adaptation and adaptability
Whereas in Germany in the Ruhrgebiet joint deci- we see merit in the further conceptual and theoret-
sion-making involving employers, unions and public ical development of resilience. Rather than using its
authorities promoted a very different kind of adapta- shortcomings to dispense with the idea at this stage
tion based upon active restructuring and re-orienta- of its development, we see value in prompting fur-
tion of existing supply chain competences towards ther cross-disciplinary research on the resilience of
new growth paths in new environmental technolo- places. We have sought to demonstrate how evolu-
gies and renewable energy equipment encouraged by tionary approaches in Economic Geography pro-
national state energy policy (Grabher, 1993). vide a means of understanding and explaining the
Addressing the question of what kind of resil- geographically differentiated and uneven resilience
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Pike et al.
(Lobao et al., 2009)? Identifying appropriate points sense of disruptive challenges is preferable to any
and moments for intervention is complex and diffi- simple reactive and/or ‘off-the-shelf’ response.
cult but critical in adaptation and adaptability
processes when doing nothing is seldom a viable Acknowledgements
option because as the economy evolves ‘‘social Thanks to the Editors of the Special Issue for the invita-
agents are unable to ‘sit out’ events’’ (Clark et al., tion to contribute and editorial advice and the reviewers
1986, ix). Our analysis suggests, first, that the long- for their valuable comments. Andy Pike would also like
standing binary of specialization versus diversifica- to acknowledge the contribution of ongoing work on
tion remains influential in discussions of what kinds
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