What is social resilience? Lessons learned and ways forward

Abstract

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.