What is social resilience? Lessons learned and ways forward

Abstract

Summary: Over the last decade, a growing body of literature has emerged which is concerned with the question of what form a promising concept of social resilience might take. In this article we argue that social resilience has the potential to be crafted into a coherent analytic framework that can build on scientific knowledge from the established concept of social vulnerability, and offer a fresh perspective on today’s challenges of global change. Based on a critical review of recently published literature on the issue, we propose to define social resilience as being comprised of three dimensions: 1. Coping capacities –the ability of social actors to cope with and overcome all kinds of adversities; 2. Adaptive capacities – their ability to learn from past experiences and adjust themselves to future challenges in their everyday lives; 3. Transformative capacities – their ability to craft sets of institutions that foster individual welfare and sustainable societal robustness towards future crises. Viewed in this way, the search for ways to build social resilience – especially in the livelihoods of the poor and marginalized – is revealed to be not only a technical, but also a political issue. Zusammenfassung: Innerhalb der vergangenen Dekade ist eine Vielzahl von Artikeln erschienen, die sich mit der �ra-ge beschäftigen, wie ein der �orschung dienliches Konzept von sozialer Resilienz aussehen könnte. Wir argumentieren, dass ein in sich kohärentes �orschungsprogramm erstellt werden kann, welches nicht nur in der Lage ist, Ergebnisse aus der Verwundbarkeitsforschung aufzunehmen, sondern gleichsam neue Wege für die Erforschung aktueller Problemlagen aufzuzeigen vermag. Vor dem Hintergrund der gegenwärtigen Literaturlage schlagen wir eine Definition sozialer Resilienz