Abstract for: Resilience for whom? Problem structuring in the analysis of resilience for climate change adaptation

Resilience has recently become a buzzword among researchers and policymakers. This interest is, at least partially, the result of the recent acknowledgement of the vulnerability of social, natural and economic systems. Resilience thinking has usually combined descriptive with prescriptive work, aiming to increase understanding of the systems that analyse and to propose better ways to manage them in order to enhance their resilience. In this process, however, little attention has been paid to the political relationships shaping the social and economic parts of those systems. This paper reflects on the importance of the problem formulation in the analysis of resilience. If not carefully used, resilience and climate change adaptation, in general, might be used by power stakeholders as a way to legitimize their power or support their own interests in particular. In this paper, I use system dynamics modelling methodology to compare causal loop diagrams of food vulnerability dynamics on Huehuetenango, Guatemala generated by different stakeholders. The diagrams show significant differences in the ways different groups structure the problem and reflect different understandings and agendas about the problem. I conclude that resilience research and policymaking.