CASCADE-NET: Civil Agency, Society and Climate ADaptation to weather Extremes
ESRC Seminar Series
Project title: ESRC Seminar Series: CASCADE-NET (Civil Agency, Society and Climate ADaptation to weather Extremes)
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Project Leader: Professor Lindsey McEwen, UWE Bristol
Other UWE Bristol researchers:
Research partners/Collaborators:
- Dr Tom Ball (University of Winchester, UK)
- Dr Andrew Black (University of Dundee, UK)
- Associate Professor Alison Cottrell (James Cook University, Australia)
- Professor Hamish Fyfe (University of South Wales)
- Associate Professor David King (James Cook University, Australia)
- Dr Martina McGuinness (University of Sheffield, UK)
- Professor Mike Wilson (Loughborough University, UK)
- Dr Adam Corner (Climate Outreach)
- Paul Cobbing (UK National Flood Forum)
- Paul Hendy (Scottish Flood Forum)
Start date: June 2016
End date: June 2020
Summary
This seminar series critically examined the changing role of civil society in the Extreme Weather Adaptation Cycle.
Key outputs
The key output from the seminar series was a special edition of the Journal of Extreme Events – 9.2/3, where many of the original contributors were authors. An editorial and twelve papers in a variety of formats were produced.
Special Issue: JOEE CASCADE-NET - Increasing civil society’s capacity to deal with changing extreme weather risk: Negotiating dichotomies in theory and practice.
- Editorial: CASCADE-NET - Increasing civil society’s capacity to deal with changing extreme weather risk: Negotiating dichotomies in theory and practice. Lindsey McEwen, Robin Leichenko, Joanne Garde-Hansen, and Tom Ball
- The future of volunteering in extreme weather events: Critical reflections on key challenges and opportunities for climate resilience. Steven Forrest, Jakub Dostál, and Lindsey McEwen.
- The role of civil society in extreme events through a narrative reflection of pathways and long-term relationships. Paul Cobbing, Ewan Waller, and Lindsey McEwen.
- Rebuffing the ‘hard to reach’ narrative: How to engage diverse groups in participation for resilience. Lindsey McEwen, Andrew Holmes, Flora Cornish, Robin Leichenko, Kristen Guida, Kevin Burchell, Justin Sharpe, Glyn Everett, and Matt Scott.
- Operationalizing urban climate justice: A case study of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York City. Khai Hoan Nguyen and Robin Leichenko.
- Hearing minority voices: Institutional discrimination towards LGBTQ in disaster and recovery. David King.
- Is there room on the broom for a crip? Disabled women as experts in disaster planning. Elizabeth Harrington, Karen Bell, Lindsey McEwen, and Glyn Everett.
- Engaging senior citizens and flood risk reduction: innovations in community engagement and the resulting spillover effects. Brian Robert Cook, Peter Kamstra, Rachel Winterton, Reanna Willis and Ruby Kamoora.
- Communication to reduce dependency and enhance empowerment using ‘new’ media: Evidence from practice in UK flood risk areas. Tom Ball and Grace Nash-Williams.
- 'Gentle disruptions': A critical reflection on participatory arts in expanding the language system for meaningful community engagement around local climate adaptation. Antonia Liguori, Lindsey McEwen, Karen Le Rossignol, Sharron Kraus and Michael Wilson.
- The challenge of engaging communities on hidden risks: Co-developing a framework for Adaptive Participatory Storytelling Approaches (APSA). Liz Roberts, Antonia Liguori, Lindsey McEwen, and Mike Wilson.
- From extreme weather events to ‘cascading vulnerabilities’: Participatory flood research methodologies in Brazil during COVID-19. Nerea Calvillo, Joanne Garde-Hansen, Fernanda Lima-Silva, Rachel Trajber, and João Porto de Albuquerque.
- Mutual aid as disaster response in NYC: Hurricane Sandy to COVID-19. Laura Landau.
An additional paper was published early in a different volume:
- Liguori, A., McEwen, L., Le Rossignol, K., Kraus, S., and Wilson, M. (2024) ‘Gentle disruptions’: a critical reflection on participatory arts in expanding the language system for meaningful community engagement around local climate adaptation. Journal of Extreme Events.
Website resources
Most of the eight themed seminars and one conference were recorded and lodged on the project website.
Key findings
“This special edition aims to distil the interdisciplinary, inter-professional and transdisciplinary discussions within the CASCADE-NET seminars, recognising the opportunities to capture and narrate a wide diversity of participant voices (cf. Goldstein et al. 2015). The objective is to share this thinking and promote wider dialogue across disciplinary and professional audiences and civil society. It distils some critical reflections from that dialogue across key themes, identifies lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and on the key implications for future research agendas.
The set of 12 papers are stimulated by CASCADE-NET’s dialogue and in some draw directly from the workshop discussions. Over 35 network members contribute their thinking and evidence under four main headings: citizenship and participation, broadening spaces for participation, innovations in participation and mutual learning and civil agency in extreme weather and COVID-19.
The papers take a variety of formats: empirical research papers, methodological reflections, a roundtable dialogue, a policy forum, a literature review and reflective commentaries. They offer ideas and guidance to promote further discussion about possible ways forward in navigating futures for the research, policy and practice of participatory citizenship in extreme weather risk management and wider climate resilience.”
See full editorial:
- McEwen, L. J., Leichenko, R., Garde Hansen, J. and Ball, T. (2023) CASCADE-NET: Increasing Civil Society’s capacity to deal with changing extreme weather risk: negotiating dichotomies in theory and practice. Journal of Extreme Events 9, (2/3).
Reference:
- Goldstein, BE, Wessells AT, Lejano R and Butler W (2015). Narrating resilience: Transforming urban systems through collaborative storytelling (PDF). Urban Studies, 52(7): 1285–1303.
Contact
For further information on the project, please contact Professor Lindsey McEwen (lindsey.mcewen@uwe.ac.uk).