Resilience Design: Myths of Participation and Stewardship

Abstract

Design proposals that aim to increase resilience to future extreme weather events increasingly center on equity concerns. The question of the implementation and ongoing maintenance of resilient landscapes, however, receives scant attention in planning literature despite the abundance of stewardship references in resilience proposals. Stewardship, as both concept and act, implicates equity because it is a form of adaptation labor that is invisible and unpaid. Here, I discuss California's Resilient by Design project to show that when the labor involved in stewardship projects is not acknowledged, claims for an equitable and resilient future espoused by planning proposals are diminished.