Toward reflexive climate adaptation research

Highlights

• Explores adaptation research as an outcome of reflexive modernization.

• Identifies tensions associated with research about versus for adaptation.

• Highlights the importance of non-academic labor in transdisciplinary research.

• Argues for a reflexive orientation toward adaptation research.

• Identifies examples of reflexive adaptation research in the literature.

Climate adaptation research is expanding rapidly within an increasingly reflexive society where the relationship between academia and other social institutions is in a state of flux. Tensions exist between the two dominant research orientations of research about and research for adaptation. In particular, the research community is challenged to develop processes for successfully executing transdisciplinary research for adaptation when academic institutions and researchers are largely structured around traditional, disciplinary expertise and funding models. One tool for helping to manage this tension is a third, more reflexive, orientation toward adaptation research that is emerging in the literature. This new ‘research on adaptation research’ promises to help enhance understanding of the research enterprise itself and how it can become more adaptive.

Introduction

The climate adaptation research enterprise has grown markedly over the past decade as evidenced by exponential growth in research publications (Figure 1), new research institutions dedicated to adaptation [1^••], and the emergence of adaptation science as a research discipline [2^••]. This rapid growth has occurred within a broader dynamic of increasingly blurred boundaries between social institutions of academia, government, business, and legal systems [3]. This contributes to a range of epistemological, methodological and practical challenges and tensions for adaptation researcher and researchers. Such tensions arise from the multiple orientations of adaptation research, at least two of which are now well-documented in the literature [1••, 2••]. The first is research about adaptation, which emphasizes fundamental understanding of adaptation processes in human and natural systems, without necessarily seeking to inform or facilitate a particular adaptation response. The second is research for adaptation, which is more applied in nature as it attempts to generate knowledge that identifies adaptation options, supports adaptation planning, and guides implementation processes. These two different orientations reflect fundamentally different perspectives with respect to the function of adaptation research within society [4, 5, 6].

Left to co-exist as parallel endeavors, these two orientations lead to tensions that adaptation researchers must negotiate. These can be explored in the context of Cash et al.’s three oft-cited knowledge criteria for linking science to policy: salience, credibility, and legitimacy [7]. Researchers must select their preference for research about versus for adaptation, which ultimately is a preference regarding the balance between credibility (directing effort toward the development of fundamental knowledge and academic indicators of merit) and relevance (directing effort at generating observable societal benefits). Research credibility is needed in light of the complexity and associated uncertainty of climate change, its consequences, and the planning and implementation of adaptation responses. Where such issues of credibility are emphasized, researchers are inclined to shy away from speaking directly to the policy implications of their research. Yet, practitioners and research stakeholders often seek directive statements and clear, practical, evidence-based adaptation solutions. Furthermore, research based on the perceived needs of stakeholders can lead to tensions regarding the legitimacy of knowledge and subsequent policy preferences [8]. In practice, adaptation may involve multiple stakeholders with their own needs, values, and preferences that influence the manner in which research is framed and executed.

While significant attention has been devoted to how to best use climate change science to facilitate adaptation, these tensions are not well-appreciated [9, 10, 11, 12, 13•], in part due to an emphasis on the research rather than on the researcher. Yet, they have important consequences with respect to the development of successful adaptation research endeavors and, subsequently, robust adaptation practice. Hence, there is an emergent third orientation in adaptation research that targets the research paradigm itself and the role of the researcher within it. This research on adaptation research represents a reflexive approach toward adaptation research and its role in generating knowledge for adaptation planning, policy, and implementation. Considered a route to enhanced adaptive capacity [14] and effective governance under climate change [15, 16••], reflexivity is about the development of a research enterprise that is responsive to learning and critically reflective of not only what a researcher is doing, but, as popularized by Schön [17] and Cunliffe [18] with their notion of the ‘reflexive practitioner,’ why, how, and to what effect.

This paper reviews literature on the institutional, epistemic, and interpersonal challenges of conducting adaptation research, beginning with the broad science-policy context. The objective is to articulate the plight of adaptation researchers engaged in generating credible, salient, and legitimate adaptation knowledge within an ‘institutional void’ [19] characterized by diverse and, at times, conflicting expectations and objectives for their research. In addition, this paper seeks to illustrate the manner in which reflexive thinking is increasingly driving critical analysis of the adaptation research process, its links to adaptation practice, and what it means to be an adaptation researcher.