Can Resilience be Reconciled with Globalization and the Increasingly Complex Conditions of Resource Degradation in Asian Coastal Regions?

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between resilience and globalization. We are concerned, most importantly, with whether resilience is a suitable conceptual framework for natural resource management in the context of the rapid changes and disruptions that globalization causes in social-ecological systems. Although theoretical in scope, we ground this analysis using our experiences in two Asian coastal areas: Junagadh District in Gujarat State, India and Banawa Selatan, in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. We present the histories of resource exploitation in the two areas, and we attempt to combine a resilience perspective with close attention to the impact of globalization. Our efforts serve as a basis from which to examine the conceptual and practical compatibility of resilience with globalization. The first challenge we address is epistemological: given that resilience and globalization have roots in different disciplines, do they share a sufficiently common perception of change and human action to be compatible? Second, we address the issue of how resilience can be a viable management objective in the rapidly changing context of globalization. We identify scale as particularly important in this regard.