Understanding Climate Change through a Community Definition of Resilience: Qualitative Analysis of Interviews and Implications for Practice

This thesis explores how residents in low-income, rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods conceptualize resilience to climate change and what responses are desired. As part of a Participatory Action Research study in Eastern Massachusetts, I analyzed de-identified interviews with residents and engaged in collaborative data analysis sessions with Resident Researchers. Residents in these communities experience climate change through chronic stressors, mainly through heat, high utility bills, and flooding. They connect climate resilience to other stressors in their lives like displacement, structural racism, and trauma, and they see strong community ties as a key piece of resilience. Based on this research, responses to climate change need to consider the root causes of unjust systems, respond to the co-stressors in people’s lives, and have community ownership and control in order to be most effective.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Nakagawa, Anisha Patil

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Arcaya, Mariana
• Binet, Andrew

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/155493

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/155493