Adaptive Capacity as Cultural Practice

Maru et al. (2012) provide an insightful synthesis about the poverty and rigidity traps. They note how these states can be quite resilient and undesirable for indigenous cultures. We support their approach and add three additional considerations. (1) Maru et al. (2012) tend to interchange adaptive capacity and resilience as concepts. Adaptive capacity and resilience have two different purposes. Resilience is a state or condition. Adaptive capacity is the ability to change one’s state, or condition. (2) Indigenous culture narratives and experience are a good source of long-term data for generating hypotheses about adaptive capacity as a cultural process. (3) Escaping the poverty trap may require cultural processes that are adaptive and transformative. Indigenous people adapting sovereign power in an ecosystem may also include transformative portfolios of economic activity; new leadership, vision, and partnerships to work within and between groups; and adapting their values and knowledge to new situations.