Building adaptive Capacity in the informal settlements of maputo - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 26

bridging their understandings of the world is therefore at the heart of adaptive
capacity (McCarthy et al. 2011). The networks, institutions and decision-
making spaces available to communities play multiple roles in adaptive
capacity, helping to build a more complete understanding of the problem in
question, of the solutions available, and of the potential consequences and
trade-offs. Water catchments, for example, are increasingly recognized as sites
of interdependent and interconnected actors and ecologies, which are socially
constructed yet understood and valued differently by stakeholders (Ison et al.
2007). As a consequence, catchment management is increasingly concerned
with processes for knowledge co-production and sharing (e.g. Lebel et al. 2010;
Ducrot 2012). Similarly, previous research in Mozambique has shown that, in
order for adaptation to be successful, local populations need to be included in
understanding how climate change may place them at greater risk (Patt and
Schröter 2008). Unless climate scientists, bureaucrats and community members
can come together, recognizing that each interprets and prioritizes the impacts
of climate change differently, and then collectively defining what successful
adaptations may look like, adaptation will remain partial and maladaptation likely.
Lack of this kind of capacity hinders mainstreaming of adaptation, reducing it
to a donor-led exercise rather than one that is co-developed across government
and civil society (Sietz et al. 2011).
Knowledge implies learning and the ability to use information. In this sense,
knowledge makes information useful. But what is often overlooked is that
this also means that we construct our knowledge on the basis of our (limited)
experiences and (specific, often shared) values. One person's knowledge of a
given issue will not necessarily be the same as another's, with understandings
shifting across individuals and communities. Power-sharing approaches can
overcome this limitation by facilitating knowledge sharing and joint learning
experiences (see, for example, Sanginga et al. 2010). Through working together
to gain a better understanding of the situation, new and shared ways of knowing
are generated (Schusler et al. 2003; Ison et al. 2007; Pahl-Wostl 2009). In this way,
power-sharing processes provide participants with a window onto complexity, as
each actor recognizes that his or her knowledge is incomplete and is enabled to
form and revise this knowledge in light of the multiple perspectives and shared
experiences that result from collaborative actions. In most cases, imperfect power
sharing means that power remains pertinent. The production of knowledge
is political and part of the wider power dynamics that define the relationships
between stakeholders, affecting who participates, who speaks and who benefits.
Experimentation and testing
The testing of new technologies and methodologies in the local context links
experimentation directly to the processes of knowledge generation described
above. Stimulated by an awareness of climate change, new information is
turned into new knowledge through its local application, with the emergent