Exploring adaptation and adaptability in uneven economic resilience: a tale of two Chinese mining regions

Abstract

The aim of this article is to provide a better understanding of long-term uneven resilience by critically exploring the notions of adaptation and adaptability. Moving beyond the conventional trade-off assumption, the article proposes three main types of adaptation–adaptability relationships: Competing, Separated and Reciprocal, as an analytical approach to explain uneven regional resilience. Two empirical case studies of municipal-level mining regions with a common crisis of coal exhaustion in China, namely Zaozhuang and Fuxin, show how variations of adaptation–adaptability relationships result in uneven resilience.