July 27, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This blog post is for <\/em>assignment 1B in the CALS505 course<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Consultation on Canada\u2019s National Adaptation Strategy<\/a> closed two weeks ago. As a cohort of students in the Climate Action Leadership program at Royal Roads University, eleven of us collaborated on a joint letter to share our priorities for action. There was no formal organizing mechanism behind us, just video calling software, a Google document, a deadline, and our ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve been reflecting on this project a lot over the past few weeks. What I found striking was the process felt joyful<\/em>. I left our calls feeling energized and restored, and confident in our work. I have written dozens of advocacy letters in my life. I\u2019ve collaborated with people plenty of times. I have had hundreds of video calls. So, what made this experience stand out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Discovering the description of social capital helped me understand my joy. Social capital is the \u201ctrust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviours that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action possible\u201d (Cohen & Prusack, 2001, p. 4). We weren\u2019t just eleven people trying to co-write a piece. I was partnering with ten other people who are values-driven and who walk the talk. We\u2019ve built understanding of one another over difficult assignments, through class discussions, and across multiple time zones. Our submission to the national adaptation strategy provided us a reason to deepen these relationships while we reflected and applied what we have learned throughout the program. So, it wasn\u2019t just the software, a deadline, and our ideas that pulled the letter together. It was really the social capital we have been building over the past thirteen months as a cohort that made the project come together so smoothly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This realization helped me understand the meaning of relationship building<\/em> that is so central to decolonization work. Gram-Hanssen et al. (2022) call for \u201cdecolonial efforts from non-Indigenous people for society to successfully adapt to climate change in a way that centers equitable relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people\u201d (p. 674). I understand this to mean that relationship building not only prepares us to work together effectively on climate action (as was the case with our cohort), but the relationships themselves <\/em>are climate adaptations. My understanding of social capital has shifted from seeing it as outcome <\/em>of working together to a necessary foundation <\/em>to adaptation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This idea was reinforced by the explanation of resilience by Ungar (2019), who concluded \u201cthe social, political, and natural environments in which we live are far more important to our health, fitness, finances and time management than our individual thoughts, feelings, or behaviours\u201d (para. 29). The way I see it, Ungar (2019) is describing resilience as social capital beyond the organizational scale, but rather at the community scale. Perhaps by building social capital within and between groups, climate resilience can be found for as many people as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n References<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cohen, D., & Prusak, L. (2001). In Good Company. <\/em>Harvard Business School Press. Boston, MA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Gram-Hanssen, I., Schafenacker, N., & Bentz, J. (2022). Decolonizing transformations through \u2018right relations\u2019. Sustainability Science 17, <\/em>673-685. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s11625-021-00960-9<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n