Insight

INTRODUCTION

The younger ones are writing their story, they’re shifting their story in this modern world ... (Phillemon Mosby, Poruma Island, Torres Strait; Marin 2020)

For Indigenous communities in the Torres Strait Islands that form Australia’s northern border, change is recognized as inevitable. Younger generations stand poised to determine their future, in a world that is different from their elders’ and ancestors’ and indeed, the ability to create new stories about possible futures can, and arguably must, inspire transformative social change (Riedy 2020, Chapin 2021).

Yet as these communities confront the twin challenges of climate and cultural change, they also navigate the paradoxes at the heart of resilience theory (Redman and Kinzig 2003, Folke et al. 2010). To be resilient is to maintain structure, function, and identity in the face of change, but also to be flexible, and build capacity for learning and adaptation (Carpenter et al. 2001). Said another way, to be resilient is a continuous process of filtering and pruning, separating things to keep from those to let go. These choices are not trivial; as Redman and Kinzig (2003) observe in past societies, decisions that increased resilience in the short term have sometimes compromised resilience in the long term, eventuating in collapse. “True resilience,” they assert, “will lie in knowing when to change course and when to forge ahead” (p. 5).

This paradox can be partly reconciled when resilience is considered as a property of social-ecological systems characterized by nested adaptive cycles over time and space (Holling and Gunderson 2002). In this light, three forms of resilience have been distinguished (Walker et al. 2004, Folke et al. 2010, Herrfahrdt-Pähle and Pahl-Wostl 2012, Folke 2016, de Wit et al. 2021): (1) persistence, where incremental changes are made after a disturbance, allowing the system to “bounce back” and stay on the same pathway; (2) adaptation, in which adjustments are made through innovation, flexibility, and learning to maintain the system on the same pathway; and (3) transformation, where the current pathway is abandoned altogether, and new trajectories are followed. The complexity, scale, and connectedness of present-day stresses (Homer-Dixon et al. 2015) make this transformational variant of resilience increasingly relevant (de Wit et al. 2021), and with it a collective consideration of what new systems, values, and beliefs might accompany a transformation process (Gorddard et al. 2016). This is occurring alongside greater cross-fertilization between the social-ecological systems scholarship and other epistemological approaches to understanding resilience (Leitch and Bohensky 2014, DeVerteuil and Golubchikov 2016, Maclean et al. 2017); for example, mental health literature highlights the importance of scale and cultural settings that are underpinned by unique value systems and worldviews (Allen et al. 2014). Furthermore, sources and properties of resilience may be held in tension at personal and communal levels across different times, places, and contexts (Ulturgasheva et al. 2014).

The inherent contradictions in resilience sit alongside another recognized paradox for remote Indigenous peoples as they encounter a changing climate (Maru et al. 2014, Lyons et al. 2019): although Indigenous communities hold unique knowledge and adaptation approaches relevant to climate change, they contend with some of the highest levels of vulnerability to climate impacts (McNamara et al. 2017), alongside other pervasive challenges, which externally defined, non-Indigenous governance approaches have generally been unable to resolve (Petheram et al. 2010, Etchart 2017, Nursey-Bray et al. 2019, Hill et al. 2020, Usher et al. 2021). Connections to place are thus a source of resilience but can also constrain adaptation options (McNamara et al. 2017).

Together, these paradoxes suggest that a broadening of ways to think and talk about practical actions that can build resilience in these communities may be warranted. Furthermore, in an Indigenous context these need to be relevant to and indeed led by Indigenous peoples and communities (Allen et al. 2014, Saloman et al. 2018, Hill et al. 2020, Usher et al. 2021, Willis et al. 2024). We propose a new way of considering resilience in an Indigenous Australian region, the Torres Strait Islands that form the country’s norther border: “re-adaptation,” or a return to and reinforcement of the values and cultural traditions that enabled communities to survive past adversity. We first describe the place and participatory research settings in which this concept emerged and then explore its key features and potential connection points to resilience literature. We conclude by considering how the re-adaptation concept can support Torres Strait communities in the face of continued climate change, and its significance in enriching more pluralistic dialogue about resilience.

THE TORRES STRAIT ISLANDS: THE RESILIENCE STORY SO FAR

In the Torres Strait Islands (traditionally known as Zenadth Kes) that form the northern border of Australia, communities are negotiating the increasingly widespread challenge of how to maintain their identities and cultures in the face of rapid change, and the region may be at a pivotal point in charting its course into the future (Faa 2020, Marin 2020). In September 2022, Torres Strait Islanders won a lawsuit against the Australian government for failing to address climate change, on the grounds of neglect of their traditional values and culture (Testa 2022). Then in November, a joint native title claim gave formal recognition to five groups of Torres Strait and mainland traditional owners of their continuing connections, rights, and interests to their land and sea “country” (Queensland Government 2022). The region continues to seek sovereignty that may well set the stage for more empowered, self-determined futures (Canetti and Henderson 2022, Lui and Nakata 2024). Yet despite this momentum, the challenge remains: because many of the islands are low-lying, sea level rise is already a stand-out threat to communities (TSRA 2016, McNamara et al. 2017). This is widely accepted; the Torres Strait Regional Adaptation and Resilience Plan 2016-2021 begins with an acknowledgement that “For many years now, our communities have noticed changes in the seasons and tides that indicate different patterns to our traditional knowledge” and that “we cannot do things the same way we used to, but that we will need to change” (TSRA 2016:i).

Bordering Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Indonesia, the Torres Strait is home to approximately 9500 mostly Indigenous Australians living in 20 culturally distinct communities on 18 islands (TSRA 2024), and a place of cultural connection for the many more who have migrated to mainland Australia, but maintain strong connections to country, language, cultural practices, and family and friends who remain on the islands, and ancestors who are buried there (Rainbird 2016). Torres Strait Islanders have longstanding familial, cultural, and trading ties with neighboring PNG, which are recognized by the Torres Strait Treaty between Australia and PNG since its ratification in 1985. The Treaty affords protection to the “Traditional Inhabitants’” way of life (Busilacchi et al. 2018), and shared resources are managed under a complex set of arrangements within a designated area called the Torres Strait Protected Zone (TSPZ; Fig. 1). However, development has been asymmetrical on the two sides of the international border (Busilacchi et al. 2018), and the Treaty has not ameliorated this asymmetry, posing a challenge for policy negotiations between the neighboring nations (Butler et al. 2019). Owing to its geography, the transboundary region is experiencing other changes at multiple levels (Butler et al. 2014a). Demand for seafood from the burgeoning Asian economy has created new value chains (Busilacchi et al. 2022), which coupled with rapid population growth and poverty in PNG, have increased exploitation of shared marine resources and growing illegal incursions into Australian waters (Butler et al. 2019). The pressure on the Torres Strait’s natural resources may escalate further with Chinese-funded infrastructure projects along the PNG coast under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Smith 2020).

A primary concern is the erosion of Torres Strait Islander’s Indigenous culture, as expressed and practiced in tradition, language, and knowledge. This culture, known as Ailan Kastom, is tightly connected to the land and sea country with which it has co-evolved (TSRA 2016, McNamara et al. 2017). Although the region’s remoteness has enabled maintenance of a strong cultural identity, its geographical disadvantage has encouraged government investment, which has impacted culture adversely, a situation not dissimilar to that experienced by Indigenous communities elsewhere in Australia and beyond (Bohensky et al. 2013, Maru et al. 2014, Lyons et al. 2019, Nursey-Bray et al. 2020). Torres Strait Islander livelihoods rely on a “hybrid economy” where customary activities are complemented by a market economy and government welfare payments (Altman 2007). Although bringing many benefits to the TSI, the installation of modern services and infrastructure on the islands has compromised efforts to build community self-reliance. This is compounded by welfare systems and a lack of employment opportunities, and youth out-migration in search of viable economic and personal opportunities is a further issue that challenges regional resilience (TSRA 2016). There is, consequently, strong interest amongst Torres Strait communities in fostering their resilience so that they can not only cope with the range of drivers affecting their region, but also proactively respond to new opportunities that this change creates in ways that acknowledge and strengthen culture (TSRA 2022). This is accompanied by a rise in traditional knowledge and values being integrated into marine resource management and livelihood development (Butler et al. 2012, Plagányi et al. 2013, McNamara and Westoby 2016), and it is timely to question how resilience concepts and framings can assist the region into the future. Diverse views on resilience are being brought to bear on planning to build resilience in the Torres Strait Islands (Rainbird 2016, TSRA 2016); however, translation from theory to context-specific practical guidance remains a challenge, as it is for communities more broadly (Fazey et al. 2018).

PARTICIPATORY RESILIENCE-BUILDING IN THE TORRES STRAIT

The authors of this paper are a mix of Indigenous (including Torres Strait Islander) and non-Indigenous peoples, working in roles as scientists and research partners/implementers, the latter group being potential “change agents” (Meharg 2023). We have been involved in collaborative research partnerships in the Torres Strait region for more than a decade. A central plank of this collaboration was the Australian Government’s National Environmental Research Program (NERP), which supported Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Torres Strait Regional Authority (TSRA), and James Cook University (JCU) to work with TSI partners to undertake the project “Building Resilient Communities for Torres Strait Futures” from 2011 to 2014, with additional CSIRO support provided for follow-up evaluations in 2018 and 2022. In tandem with formal collaboration, a more organic sharing of ideas through ongoing trust, relationships, and dialogue among participants has persisted beyond the project cycle. The TSRA continues to work with TSI communities to develop a framework to help build resilience (TSRA 2024).

Recent decades have seen the accumulation of a knowledge base from research documenting the TSI’s environmental status and trends of natural assets, notably dugong and turtle populations (Johnson et al. 2015), key pressures on these assets from sea level rise (Duce et al. 2010, Suppiah et al. 2010, Parnell and Smithers 2020), and the mediating role of adaptive capacity (McNamara et al. 2017). The Building Resilient Communities project was unique in bringing together decision makers and communities at multiple levels, and integrating existing research and co-produced knowledge. Participants worked to pro-actively anticipate the combined potential impacts of change on Torres Strait island communities, and to then design robust adaptation strategies and implementation pathways through a livelihood adaptation pathways approach (Butler et al. 2014b, 2015, 2016).

Embodying participatory futures co-research, dialogue, reflective evaluation, and learning, the project aimed to explore and build community and regional capacity to deal with a range of pressures. Defining resilience through locally resonant terms and examples was central to this. Through a series of six workshops, participants from the three island communities of Masig, Erub, and Mabuiag, along with community leaders and stakeholders in the region articulated future visions (Fig. 2), developed alternative future scenarios and identified “no regrets” adaptation strategies that communities wished to pursue to build resilience. Participants worked in small groups to outline and sketch six priority strategy areas, which were: development of a cultural renewal strategy (Fig. 3); improved garden production on the islands (Fig. 4); communication between islands (Fig. 5); community communication within islands (Fig. 6); marine resource management (Fig. 7); and economic development of ecotourism, fisheries, and aquaculture (Fig. 8). Participants then undertook a gap analysis to identify barriers to taking these priority actions, as well as actors or champions needed to implement them. Details of the project design and activities are available in Bohensky et al. (2014).

At the project’s conclusion in 2014 we conducted evaluation interviews in which participants were asked a series of questions about the extent to which the project achieved impact for a range of adaptive capacity indicators (Butler et al. 2016, Cox et al. 2020). The same participants were re-interviewed in 2018 and again in 2021-2022 to assess evidence of impacts over a longer time period (Butler and Bohensky 2023, unpublished manuscript).

We also approached a small number of participants to share their experiences for two short videos. These individuals were selected for their leadership roles at the time of interviewing (indicated after each quote) and to represent the diversity of participants in the workshops. We asked each participant to reflect on what they had learned from their participation in the project, and how it may have contributed to aims of providing a forum for learning and exchange, catalyzing connections, and stimulating thought through novel lenses.

One of the insights that emerged from these conversations was:

I’m not surprised by the level of importance that’s been placed on returning to our cultural values and traditions, and I like to think it’s called “re-adaptation” rather than adaptation because it’s going back to what really held us together as strong communities before White settlement in Australia. (participant 1, 2014)

This participant elaborated subsequently in a longer evaluation interview:

Re-adaptation is the idea of reinforcing the values and cultural traditions that make us resilient as communities when times are toughest. (participant 1, 2014)

Other interviewees also spoke to the importance of re-engaging with culture and traditional knowledge, consistent with the re-adaptation concept:

Culture, that guarded these waters and these islands for the last 8000 to 9000 years is very important, and that’s what I think the people are saying: to protect the place we want to bring culture back. (participant 2, 2014)

We talked about what people see in terms of fitting into cultural values. Before time they used to do a lot of things compared to now; a lot of culture has changed. Trying to introduce culture back into schools. Making people aware of how things will affect us, global change. (participant 3, 2014)

When we conducted interviews again in 2018, we were interested in whether re-adaptation would continue to resonate. Then, the practices enabling re-adaptation that surfaced in the project were also described as a form of insurance against unpredictable shocks and surprises, and also highlighted the importance of self-reliance:

One thing can change everything overnight. Look at the tourism market in Cairns. One catastrophe can change everything like that. What is Plan B? I’m still thinking about how a global event can impact everything. Not just sea level rise but how a war can change our funding system. All these things like gardening are our fallback. (participant 4, 2018)

If I think about some of the projects like garden projects and cultural revival, they’ve definitely been happening ... all these conversations lead to change and inform the future. After the Saibai wall went up people are going back to making sandbags again - more practical, cheaper ways of doing things are still on the cards. (participant 1, 2018)

The project did show people that there is an alternative future, and that they have a scope of influence to reach that, rather than sitting back and letting someone else articulate and do that. (participant 5, 2018)

Another participant remarked:

[T]hat re-adaptation idea ... People can borrow from the past to create something new. About self-efficacy and realizing that they have the capacity within them to do things differently. (participant 6, 2018)

In interviews we conducted in 2022, we heard examples of re-adaptation in a return to traditional approaches used to manage the re-opening of a closed fishery:

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) said to the Torres Strait Islanders “you figure out how you’re going to manage it.” And they did. They pulled it off. Based on island lore - the old ways - communities having sea areas and using custom to access [them]. (participant 7, 2022)

Speaking explicitly about re-adaptation, the participant who first described the concept referred to the difficult choices communities are expected to face concerning relocation from islands most affected by sea level rise:

Re-adaptation ... has even more relevance because it’s coming closer ... [There is] no use doing it in 20 years, we have to start thinking about how we implement some of these solutions sooner rather than later. (participant 1, 2022)

RE-ADAPTATION AS RESILIENCE?

The emergence of “re-adaptation” as a way to make meaning of resilience reflects the scaling deep mode of impact, which can happen by “spreading big cultural ideas and using stories to shift norms and beliefs” (Moore et al. 2015:77). Re-adaptation is grounded in the local realities of the TSI but also bears similarities with other resilience ideas. We see three inter-related features contributing to its appeal:

First, re-adaptation weaves together old and new. Re-adaptation embodies a recognition of Torres Strait Islanders’ shared past, while acknowledging an imperative to engage with emerging and anticipated change. This was evident in the way communities were able to engage with our project’s participatory process. Space was needed for Torres Strait Islanders, as custodians of their history and country, to bring deep knowledge of the past (Figs. 9, 10) together with the scientists’ knowledge of trends and projections of the future into a blended process. Previously, “weaving” has described the practice of bringing Indigenous knowledge and Western science together in a way that respects the integrity of each contribution (Whyte et al. 2016, Tengö et al. 2017, Popp et al. 2020, Hill et al. 2021). In a research setting, weaving gives emphasis to genuine collaboration with and empowerment of Indigenous knowledge holders (Johnson et al. 2023). In the Torres Strait communities, re-adaptation was expressed in the collective considerations of how Islanders had adapted to exogenous change since Missionary times, but also revealed the legacies and path dependencies that may need to be confronted as they move forward to possible futures, arriving at a richer, contextualized conversation about resilience that would not have been achievable through Western science approaches alone (Popp et al. 2020).

Resilience has been defined by Abidi-Habib and Lawrence (2007), citing Axelby (2007:35), as: “the Indigenous ability to creatively reinterpret external interventions.” This ability emanates from the two dynamic cycles that characterize adaptive systems, described as “revolt” and “remember” (Gunderson and Holling 2002, Redman and Kinzig 2003, Armitage and Johnson 2006). The “revolt” effect arises when fast variables, such as shocks in economic markets, overwhelm the slower-changing system structures and processes that tend to control the system (i.e., slow variables), resetting the system and reorganizing it. The “remember” effect stems the tide; it is instilled by the slow variables operating at larger temporal and spatial scales, such as cultural practices. In theory, revolt dynamics trickle upward from small to large scales; remember dynamics do the opposite (Redman and Kinzig 2003). By one view, “revolt” tends to be reactive, triggered by disturbance, whereas “remember” involves a more anticipatory process of drawing on accumulated experience to address future change (Abidi-Habib and Lawrence 2007). Though temporarily unsettling, “revolt” may be akin to creative destruction (Armitage and Johnson 2006), in which social learning and innovation occur in response to undesirable or unknown change (Abidi-Habib and Lawrence 2007). Together, the two processes may have the effect of maintaining tension between different knowledges and practices, navigating and balancing processes of continuity and change (Herrfahrdt-Pähle and Pahl-Wostl 2012).

Resilience thus defined enables the dichotomies of “old” and “new” or “traditional” and “modern” to be transcended. This resonates with Curry et al.’s (2012) and Connell and Lee’s (2018) findings in the Pacific, and Axelby’s (2007) in the Himalayas, that change associated with globalization and modernity is not playing out as a unidirectional force; rather, it is being shaped and resisted by the remember dynamics in the continuity of cultural traditions. Re-adaptation in the sense described in the Torres Strait Islands suggests such a tension, but also offers a point of connection between the past and future; as participants in our project suggested, people desired to borrow from longstanding practices to create something new, to do things differently. Thus, re-adaptation can put current change in perspective relative to change in the past, and illuminate the extent to which transformational change might be needed rather than persisting or adapting (Nursey-Bray and Palmer 2018).

Second, re-adaptation encourages reflection and learning about pathways that enhance or erode resilience. Re-adaptation directs attention to past adaptations and their unfolding, demanding a long-term perspective and multi-generational learning that is deeply engrained in the TSI region (McNamara and Westoby 2016) as it is in other Indigenous Australian communities (Nursey-Bray et al. 2019). Re-adaptation also aligns with other approaches designed to represent the dynamism in Indigenous resilience and vulnerability (Ulturgasheva et al. 2014).

Recent work on operationalizing social-ecological system resilience has emphasized pathways diversity (Lade et al. 2020) as a means to enhance resilience, whereby “resilience is greater if more actions are currently available and can be maintained or enhanced into the future.” Pathway diversity views available actions in light of social-ecological feedbacks from past decisions, moving away from stable representations of systems and possible futures, and instead seeking to understand how the available options change over time. Dynamic temporal views of pathways through which pasts, presents, and futures are intertwined are emphasized in other bodies of work: Terry et al. (2024) offer a decolonial perspective that illuminates the importance of recognizing a multiplicity of pasts that lead to diverse presents and futures, pointing to traditional storytelling in Africa and elsewhere. Stirling et al. (2023) highlight pathways as a pluralistic and relational construct for understanding transformation that is open to imagination, and the path-making processes themselves are emergent and self-reinforcing.

Linking the re-adaptation concept to these bodies of pathways-oriented research could contribute to more nuanced dialogues on adaptation in the TSI, including changing contexts for adaptation, and the heterogeneity of adaptation responses between and within communities. In the Solomon Islands, Fazey et al. (2016) used a pathways approach to consider past adaptations in four participatory case studies, to help inform how future adaptation pathways might be conceptualized and approached. Their study of remote Kahua communities highlighted that a combination of external changes (i.e., development interventions) and internal changes (i.e., population pressure) and peoples’ responses to them were reinforcing trajectories that fail to address underlying causes of community stress, leading to negative social-ecological outcomes. In doing this, they noted the importance of power and how it shapes change dynamics. Notably, Hill et al. (2020), drawing on a case study from Central Australia, argue for the inclusion of Indigenous communities in the respectful and empowered co-production of adaptation pathways, with attention given to addressing power contests and asymmetries. Pathways are a key feature of discussions of resilience among Indigenous communities elsewhere; work in the Circumpolar Arctic has used a pathways-focused approach to explore resilience with Indigenous youth undergoing social transition (Allen et al. 2014). Indeed, Heid et al.’s (2022) review of northern American literature found that no Indigenous term for resilience existed, but references to “walking a good path” expressed related ideas.

Third, re-adaptation offers a locally grounded, community-owned way to give meaning to and make sense of resilience. In its application and operationalization, the concept of resilience has been criticized and contested. A notable deficit concerns the implication of uneven responsibility for change, with communities and individuals shouldering the burden of resilience-building, often in a reactive fashion, at the expense of deeper inquiry into structural change (Allen 2013, Blythe et al. 2018). Top-down discourse and policies to promote a resilience agenda have undermined engagement in Indigenous Australian communities (Nursey-Bray et al. 2020, Usher et al. 2021).

By contrast, self-organization, a defining characteristic of social-ecological systems resilience (Mukhovi et al. 2020), may be realized through the lenses of individual and community self-determination (Freeman 2017), decolonization (Usher et al. 2021) and democratization (Salomon et al. 2018), and centering of Indigenous types of knowledge (Gazing Wolf et al. 2024). Re-adaptation ideas express a collective desire of TSI communities to build resilience through greater self-organization, and a degree of agency to do so, drawing on past practice to better anticipate and cope in the future. As calls are made for greater primacy of Indigenous and traditional knowledge in deliberative decision making (Reedy et al. 2020, Suiseeya et al. 2022), it is critical that communities are defining and owning their relationship with change, and identifying what and who are needed to achieve it.

In this spirit, any endeavor to develop resilience definitions and principles (Biggs et al. 2015) must acknowledge the political complexities of distributional challenges, emergent asymmetries, and the benefits of wider deliberation in the governance of social-ecological systems and choices about what aspects of resilience to build, and for whom (Schoon et al. 2015), and which justice demands are served (Cañizares et al. 2024). Additionally, when engaging with resilience heuristics, the particular institutional context of the TSI needs to be considered, including how the legacy of colonization and government support to Indigenous Australian communities mediates opportunities for building resilience (Hill et al. 2020, Nursey-Bray et al. 2020).

CHANGING COURSE, FORGING AHEAD, SHIFTING STORIES

I heard a leader say that we have to do things a little differently, not the same way we’ve done. Not everyone accepts change but we’re going to need to adapt to cater for change more so in generations to come ... in order for things to move we have to do things differently. (participant 3, 2014)

The emerging narrative of re-adaptation—rather than simply adapting—suggests that it is a mix of “changing course” and “forging ahead” that offers the best prospects for equitable, multi-level resilience-building in the TSI; in essence, keeping some parts, jettisoning some, and modifying others. The illustration of adaptation strategies by workshop participants hints at this. Yet there will be inherent choices and trade-offs to be made between options, where there is still time to make them. Taking a long view, Redman and Kinzig (2003) offer this guidance:

The key is in filtering information and fostering connectivity in times of stability, increasing exchange of information and fostering flexibility in times of change, and recognizing when a shift from one strategy to the other is necessary. Hence, we assert that there is no single optimal form of system connectivity or networking that will foster resilience, and that the most favorable level of connectivity will vary across the systems, and within a particular system across time.

In outlining strategies, participants also viewed bolstering connections between individual Torres Strait Islands as a high priority, reflecting an intuitive understanding of the importance of fostering connectivity for resilience (Berbés-Blázquez et al. 2022). Given the biophysical as well as cultural diversity across the region, Torres Strait Islanders are well positioned to experiment and learn from setting up structures to optimize connectivity, trialing different strategies on different islands. This is already underway, where a regional adaptation and resilience planning process is testing opportunities to implement strategies through different approaches with different communities (TSRA 2024), attuned to existing levels of community capacity to carry these out. This can complement work to foster better connectivity between the region and its mainland ties.

The prospect of permanent relocation within the region of communities most vulnerable to rising sea levels has unique challenges (Rainbird 2016). For this reason, early anticipatory conversations around movement or resettlement of families could bring in a re-adaptation lens to guide learnings from historical events and understandings of adaptation limits and barriers (McNamara et al. 2017), as well as envision possible opportunities in such a change process.

Spaces to explore the intersections of resilience theory and past practice with emerging local narratives will also be an important aspect of re-adaptation. Although the concept has not been formalized in TSI policy, our ongoing inquiry suggests re-adaptation is contributing to the regional discursive landscape, enabling learning from the past and imagining of possible futures (Riedy 2022). The term conveys ideas that are evident in the broader literature we highlight above, and in a wider societal turn toward a re-engagement with neglected or forgotten sources of enduring resilience. This is key, as remote geographies may harbor sources of resilience that have been eroded elsewhere and that remain available for learning, coping, and rebuilding (Carmack et al. 2012, Homer-Dixon et al. 2015).

As the Torres Strait Islands continue on their resilience journey, we believe the concept of re-adaptation reflects the broader evolution of possibilities and spaces for social-ecological system change, in the spirit of Suiseeya et al. (2022:179) calling for “diverse, plural, and ongoing contestations in both science and policy arenas” and to “honor the relational reciprocities that make our Worlds possible.” The emergence of re-adaptation suggests there is value in catalyzing greater pluralism in conversations about resilience that allows a centering of these new, shifting stories and their storytellers.

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