Asset assemblages and livelihood resilience in a coastal community

Abstract

Both livelihood resilience and sustainability have received substantial attention from tourism researchers. Capital is crucial to livelihood resilience, and different livelihoods depend on different asset portfolios. However, the transformation of capital across livelihoods has not been examined carefully. Instead of treating capital as singular, we investigate capital as a multiplicity. We evaluate the transformation of capital through a qualitative approach to better understand livelihood resilience through changes in asset assemblages. We made multiple field visits to a Chinese coastal community that is developing a tourism industry, where we collected data through semi-structured interviews and observation that revealed that livelihood capitals have multiple properties and functions, enabling their transformation among asset assemblages. The buffering capacity of livelihood systems, and thereby the livelihood resilience of fishing households, substantially depends on the transformation of capitals. We conclude that the understanding of livelihood resilience can be deepened through assemblage thinking that considers both the multiplicity of capitals and their relations in different production contexts.