Three ways social identity shapes climate change adaptation

Identity is the emotionally significant self-image of an individual which is derived from their membership of social groups, often referred to as in-groups (Tajfel 1974). A positive identity is the product of confidence in the continuity of in-groups, and a sense of self-efficacy (belief in capacity to exert control), distinctiveness, and self-esteem (sense of worth) (Breakwell 2015). It is a key factor in individual behaviour as people seek to act in ways that are consistent with the norms of their in-groups.

People are aware of and sensitive to threats to their identity, which can arise from changes in social or environmental circumstances, or through labelling by others. Faced with such threats, individuals can respond in several ways, including by changing their behaviour, adapting their identity, denying the existence of the threat, or accepting the existence of a threat but not otherwise changing their identity or behaviour (Breakwell 2010, Jaspal et al 2014).

Identity has been highlighted as an important factor in many environmental domains, including on ethical consumption, pro-environmental behaviours, climate change activism, leadership of environmental change initiatives, and sharing of information about sustainability (Whitmarsh and O'Neill 2010, Jaspal et al 2014, Unsworth and Fielding 2014, Sapiains et al 2016). Emerging research suggests that social identity, and its sub-dimensions of distinctiveness, continuity, self-esteem, and self-efficacy, can also affect climate change adaptation (Frank et al 2011, Fresque-Baxter and Armitage 2012, Quinn et al 2015, Wernersson 2018, Ruoso 2019). We therefore posit three key mechanisms through which identity formation and climate adaptation interact. Specifically, social identities can be an objective of adaptation, they can change in response to climate change information, and they can constrain or enable adaptive action. The dimensions of relationships between identity and adaptation are outlined in table 1.

Maintaining and defending identity can be an objective of adaptation, for example among Indigenous groups who are struggling to hold tight to place-based and long-lived cultures that distinguish them from Western and settler cultures (Frank et al 2011, Rotarangi and Stephenson 2014, Eakin et al 2019). In cases where communities are tied to specific localities, social constructions of place, or place identity, include the identity of people that belong to them and so place identity has a strong influence on identity (Adger et al 2011). Nevertheless, social identities are not necessarily based on place, identities are intersectional in that they arise in response to multiple social constructions of difference (such as class, gender, nationality, and race), and this transpires at the collective (in-group) level as well as the individual level.

Maintaining identity is also critical to responses to climate impacts among groups whose occupational identity is tied to natural resources and management practices (Warner et al 2015, Hyland et al 2016), such as fishers (Coulthard 2009), farmers (Ruoso 2019), ranchers (Murphy et al 2017) and pastoralists (Wernersson 2018). The observation that experience of environmental change is a good predictor of adaptive behaviours may be explained by understanding those experiences as threats to identity that stimulate adaptive responses (Demski et al 2017).

There is some evidence that identities are responding to exogenous framings of in-groups as being more or less vulnerable to climate change (table 1). For example, people from low-lying islands framed as future climate migrants have shifted towards understandings of self that are more fixed in place or towards identities that are oriented towards transnational mobility (Farbotko et al 2016). The identity of places and the people tied to them may also be changing in response to climate impacts (Brown et al 2011). Nightingale (2017) shows how adaptation policy intersects with identity politics in Nepal, with political framings of diverse groups as being similarly vulnerable mapping onto the positions of political parties impeding recognition of the particular needs of local actors. Thus, because identity is intersectional, the response of identities to climate change is shaped by more than climate change's materiality, but also in response to the discourses of vulnerability and adaptation that redefine the positions of subjects and shape their entitlements to resources (Eriksen et al 2015, Nightingale 2017).

Identities are further implicated in enabling and constraining adaptation. Adaptation policies and practices receive greater support when climate change is portrayed as a threat to issues that are important for identity and when information about climate risk and responses is exchanged between groups with similar identities (Frank et al 2011, Sapiains et al 2016, Eakin et al 2019). By contrast, adaptation policies and practices that threaten the continuity of Indigenous and local identities are often strongly resisted (Mortreux and Barnett 2009, Neilsen and Reenberg 2010, Eriksen et al 2015). Similarly, dramatic messages of climate induced catastrophe threaten people's desire for continuity, control, and self-efficacy, and so are often denied or minimised, especially when no information about ameliorating behavioural change is available (O'Neill and Nicholson-Cole 2009, McCright and Dunlap 2011, Jaspal et al 2014).

There is mixed evidence about the effects of identifying with proximate and distant groups on support for adaptation policies and practices. Some studies have shown how a strong place identity can inhibit recognition of local environmental changes, and erode the legitimacy of adaptation at local scales (Bonaiuto et al 2002, Quinn et al 2019). Other studies have highlighted that sharing a sense of common cause with distant others who are risk from climate change can stimulate changes in individual behaviours and a sense of solidarity (Fresque‐Baxter and Armitage 2012, Devine-Wright et al 2015, Adger et al 2017).

Understanding how climate change affects identity, and identity in turn affects climate change responses is, we suggest, a critical knowledge frontier, and there is a strong call for more empirical research to further understanding of these connections (Fresque‐Baxter and Armitage 2012, Adger et al 2013, Eakin et al 2019). Table 1 therefore outlines the key research questions and associated theoretical propositions that help guide this contribution as well as further research.

We provide answers to the research questions in table 1 by synthesising findings from two detailed datasets about the responses of individuals to immediate risks from flooding and subsequent policy action in Somerset county (UK), and to long-term changes in sea-level and associated policy responses in Gippsland East (Australia). As explained below, these studies were conducted independently, but the studies have common characteristics that make synthesis across them meaningful. Both studies were conducted by social scientists who have a shared understanding of the social dimensions of climate change adaptation (e.g. Adger et al 2013, 2017, Quinn et al 2015, Graham et al 2018), and both used a similar methodology (see below). Further, in both places, flooding is the principal hazard, both are rural communities, and climate change is the overarching discursive and governance frame through which flooding has been understood. We do not claim that these results can be generalised across climate risks in all locations, not least because both studies were of communities in high-income countries. Nevertheless, our comparative synthesis of in-depth interview and focus group data from these two studies enables identification of the common and distinct elements of identity that are threatened across these different cases, and the responses of varied identities to different climate threats.

In Somerset, flood-affected residents were interviewed in September–October 2014 (6 to 8 months after the floods) and in April–May 2015. In the 1st round, 35 residents were interviewed (P1), and a subset of 25 residents took part in the 2nd round (P2). Interviews were conducted with residents who had been flooded in their homes directly, and those living in affected villages but who had not been inundated in their homes. Interview questions focused on residents' relationships with the place where they live, and how social and place relationships were affected by flooding. Stakeholders with a professional interest in flood risk management were also interviewed (n = 52) (for more details see Butler et al 2018).

In Gippsland East, two sets of face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted. Between November 2010 and March 2011, interviews were conducted with 30 key stakeholders with an interest in adaptation to sea-level rise, including policy makers, members of key community groups, and local government representatives. The key stakeholder interviews included questions about climate change risks of concern, with a focus on understanding people and places vulnerable to sea-level rise. In April–May 2012, interviews (I) were conducted with 42 coastal residents who had been flooded in their homes directly, and those living in affected villages but who had not been inundated in their homes. Interview questions focused on residents' relationships to the places they live and visit, the social groups they engage with, and how social and place relationships are affected by flooding. Alongside the interviews, eight focus groups (FG) were held with residents (n = 49) in at-risk communities in March and April 2013. Questions in the FGs explored residents' relationships to the places they live, their experiences with flooding and how sea-level rise may affect their relationships to these places and the people who live in them (for more details about the methods see Graham et al 2018).

For the analysis here, interview transcripts were analysed thematically using NVivo qualitative data analysis software. Two authors coded both English and Australian datasets. The data were analysed under a pre-determined coding framework based on the orienting concepts (Layder 2013) that constitute identity, as defined above, i.e. self-efficacy, self-esteem, distinctiveness and continuity. Data were coded according to whether it reflected in-group or out-group identity (groups that the respondent does not identify with), and whether it captured how identities changed with flooding and adaptation processes. The direct quotes reported are primarily selected to be as diverse as possible to show the range of ways identities were expressed by residents and stakeholders.

2.1. Floods and identity in Somerset

2.2. Floods and identity in Gippsland East

The research here provides evidence for three key mechanisms through which identity formation and climate adaptation interact, namely that: social identities can be an objective of adaptation, they can change in response to climate change information, and they can constrain or enable adaptive action. These mechanisms are evident in the specific cases of flood risk and externally-imposed government responses to future risks.

First, in both Somerset and Gippsland East cases identities are explicitly an object of adaptation. In both cases the continuity of in-groups, in-place, are threatened, by flooding (in Somerset), and by government responses to anticpated amplified flood risk due to climate change (in both Somerset and Gippsland East). The desire to maintain in-group continuity thus appears to be key to understanding community responses to adaptation imperatives, which were somewhat accommodating in Somerset in response to the experience of flooding, and somewhat resistant in Gippsland East in response to government directives.

Second, identities change in response to climate change information. In Somerset there is a long association with flooding but the 2013/14 experience exceeded and surpassed previous experiences and expectations. The increased discussion of climate change, and exchanges with agencies on future adaptation plans framed by climate change projections re-situated the perception of living with water in Somerset. In particular, respondents frequently mentioned other populations experiencing the impact of climate change, including displaced people elsewhere, and the work of Dutch engineers was mentioned in discussion of responses. This identification with distant others was used to frame the respondent's own experience, and positioned the residents themselves withing a wider geopolitical landscape. In Gippsland East, government attempts to facilitate adaptation led to a reinforcement of the existing colonial identity in as much as historical associations and self-efficacy and self-esteem were strongly reasserted as reasons to deny that flooding was a problem and so, in turn, to resist the idea that adaptation interventions were necessary. This strong reassertion of communities being in control, and good places to live, was also stimulated by the stigmatisation of these communities as being in decline.

Third, the research here shows how identities can enable or constrain adaptation. The experience in Somerset suggests that elements of identity tied to belonging to and confidence in the local community can enable adaptation. When people observe climate threats to their in-group they appear more likely to accept the need for adaptation to sustain the continuity of their communities. This implies that interventions for adaptation can be enabled after extreme events, and through engagement processes that work with the self-efficacy and self-esteem of communities. They may also be enhanced by building a network that enhances solidarity among similarly adapting communities, through which knowledge and empathy can be shared.

The experience in Gippsland East suggests that identity can also present challenges for adaptation. When adaptation policies are not calibrated with local acceptance of climate change, communities may perceive such policies as threats to their continuity. Desire for continuity and damage to self-esteem leads to denial of the existence of climate risks, in part by stressing their resilience and by downplaying the distinctiveness of their circumstances. Adaptation processes must recognise local identities and experiences and tolerances of risk, and work with communities to find solutions that provide confidence in continuity and which build on senses of self-efficacy.

Our study has demonstrated the value of understanding climate change adaptation though a social identity lens. Such a lens includes analysis of shared place identies—which ours and other studies show are important for climate change adaptation (Cunsolo Willox et al 2012, Geoghegan and Leyson 2012)—but also draws attention to the way multiple constructions of social difference combine to create forms of identity that enable or impede adaptation practices (e.g. Osborne 2015). Knowledge of how social identities are at risk from climate change and from climate change responses is key to the broader endeavour of understanding the way climate change affects the human experience, because they are central to many psychosocial phenomena, including well being (Walker-Springett et al 2017), and mental health (Cunsolo and Elllis 2018). They are also a key motivator for of adaptive behaviours and support for or opposition to adaptation policies and programmes, and so a social identity lens can help advance knowledge of barriers and enablers to adaptation, particularly at the community level (Ensor and Berger 2009). Finally, mapping social identities can help explain degrees of cooperation within and between communities who may be expected to act collectively because they share common climate risks, but who struggle to do so for reasons of socially constructed differences based on religion, race, or class; and conversely who may be amenable to cooperation and collective action on climate change despite such social differences because they share a concern over climate change (Ide and Fröhlich 2015, Slevin et al 2022). Attention to differences in social identities between governance actors, such as those from government agencies or international NGOs, may also help explain enablers and barriers of adaptation policies and plans.

Identity can be harnessed to support the social acceptability of adaptation policies and plans. Conversely, efforts to initiate adaptation are likely to face challenges of legitimacy, to lack popular support, and to be resisted if they threaten social identities. Yet the same interventions could be highly effective in cases where maintaining social identity is recognised as a goal, and where policies enhance self-esteem and develop their sense of self-efficacy.

This research was conducted with the support of an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant LP100100586 and later analysis with the support of ARC FL180100040; the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Environmental Change and Health; the UK Economic and Social Research Council (Grant ES/M006867/1); the Wellcome Trust under the Our Planet Our Health programme (Grant 216014/Z/19/Z), and a British Academy Visiting Fellowship to the University of Exeter VF1\103386. We acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, through the "María de Maeztu" program for Units of Excellence (MDM-2015-0552). We also appreciate the time that the respondents took to participate in the interviews and focus groups.

All data that support the findings of this study are included within the article (and any supplementary files).