Adaptation spinoffs From technological and socio-economic Changes - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 161

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adaptation spinoFFs
From teChnologiCal and
soCio-eConomiC Changes
Julie Wilk, Mattias Hjerpe and Birgitta Rydhagen
introduction
Societies are continuously evolving through technological and socio-economic
changes. Some of these changes are planned or at least anticipated within the
broader goals of development aid (Soubbotina and Sheram 2000). Local, national
and international authorities strive to foster increased wellbeing in vulnerable
households through planned interventions, such as job creation, subsidies and
grants, although they do not always succeed in meeting their targeted aims.
These interventions unfold in a continuously fluctuating context, together
with large-scale globalization trends, such as urbanization, institutional and
societal change and the spread of information and communication technology
(ICT). All these phenomena, planned as well as unplanned, influence
individuals, households and communities through a complex chain of events
in contextualized environments (see e.g. Eriksen et al. 2011). Moreover, such
changes shape and form the vulnerability of people and places, as well as their
ability to develop effective adaptive strategies in response to these changes. To
our knowledge, few scholars have scrutinized the potential opportunities for
climate change adaptation arising from the unplanned impacts of changing socio-
economic processes and major globalization trends, like ICT.
This chapter is based on the premise that technological and socio-economic
trends with a potential for enhancing local adaptation strategies continually
arise, but are often overlooked and consequently under-utilized. We focus on
the unplanned effects that stem from such changes and that have potential to
enhance climate adaptation efforts. We use the term spinoffs to refer specifically
to these effects. O'Brien (2012) holds that researchers often assume that people
have limited opportunities to effect change. She argues for more research on
deliberate transformation where critical reflection and integration of knowledge