What do we mean by ‘resilience’?

Human resilience depends on a range of biological, psychological, social, and ecological systems interacting.

After its introduction to the field of ecology from maths and engineering in the 70’s, the concept of resilience was adopted in other areas that address shocks and volatility, such as humanitarian assistance, climate adaptation, business management, urban planning and international development (Till et al., 2024). In these systemic disciplines, ‘resilience’ typically emphasises the capacity of physical infrastructure and material processes to anticipate, withstand and recover from disruptive events while maintaining essential functions. In most homes and workplaces and in the field of psychology, however, ‘resilience’ is more commonly interpreted as the capacity of individuals to manage emotional distress in difficult circumstances and effectively navigate hardships. Both of these definitions are contested even within their own areas of application, particularly in the degree to which adaptive or even transformative processes are inherent in the concept, in contrast to simply ‘bouncing back’ to some preexisting state. Table 1 below illustrates this diversity.

Human resilience depends on a range of biological, psychological, social, and ecological systems interacting - Ungar & Theron (2020).

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[Mention Xu & Kajikawa network analysis, 2017]

Table 1. Four Interpretations of Resilience. From (Till et al., 2024 )

| Preserve the pre-shock state

(‘passive’)	1. Resist	Resist the shock and quickly return to the pre- shock state (physical and engineering sciences).
	2. Absorb	Absorb the shock and remain in the pre-shock state.
Change the pre-shock state
(‘active’)	3. Adapt	Adapt to the shock and implement gradual changes to the pre-shock state
	4. Transform	Transform the pre-shock state as a response to the shock or in anticipation of a shock

See What exactly are resilience and transformative resilience? by Daniel Christian Wahl for more.

A further distinction can be made between adaptive or transformative resilience that passively reacts to a changing world from a resilience paradigm that actively responds to threat, anticipating disruption and continually developing better governance. “Resilience can serve as a significant framework for transformation only when it involves conscious change and accountability” [(Fecher et al., 2023)](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2023/03/28/resilience-without-accountability-holds-back-transformative-change/#:~:text=For this%2C we need to,involves conscious change and accountability.).

Although integrative thinking is becoming more widespread, psychological resilience approaches have tended to lack societal context, whilst work on societal resilience has tended to overlook ‘inner’ psycho-social dimensions. As such, there have been criticisms of the former for reinforcing neoliberal logic and individualising distress, and the latter for neglecting the complex interplay between infrastructure, governance and ‘social capital’.

Resilience is a multidimensional (economic, sociocultural, and biophysical), multi-scalar (regional, community, and individual), and multi-faceted notion (collaborative and cultural). - Zaman & Raihan (2023).

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In order to clarify the intended meaning of the word it is now common to pair ‘resilience’ with an adjective. These adjectives can denote the source of disruptions (e.g. climate resilience), the domain concerned (e.g. economic resilience), the level at which the capacity is held (e.g. community resilience) or an interpretation of the capacity itself (e.g. transformative resilience). Other phrases used in academic and public policy literature include: adaptive resilience; cultural resilience; disaster resilience; ecological resilience, psychosocial resilience; psycho-social-ecological resilience; social resilience; social-ecological resilience; societal resilience; and urban resilience. Each of these terms have their own definitions and shades of nuance; the word ‘resilience’ is therefore a “complex multi-interpretable concept with contested definitions and relevance” (Reid & Botterill, 2013). As well as sometimes leading to confusion, this multi-interpretability can make the term functionally vague, allowing it to act as a ‘boundary object’ between disciplines.

“When applied to people and their environments, ‘‘resilience’’ is fundamentally a metaphor. With roots in the sciences of physics and mathematics, the term originally was used to describe the capacity of a material or system to return to equilibrium after a displacement… The image is a compelling one, capable of sparking human imagination, as it clearly did for Holling (1973) in his original and influential thesis about ‘‘ecological resilience.’’ The concept of resilience has since been applied to describe the adaptive capacities of individuals (e.g., Bonanno 2004; Butler et al. 2007; Rutter 1993; Werner and Smith 1982), human communities (e.g., Brown and Kulig 1996/97; Sonn and Fisher 1998), and larger societies (e.g., Adger 2000; Godschalk 2003).” - Norris et al. (2007)

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Next:

How is ‘societal resilience’ defined and studied?

What does ‘psycho-social’ mean in this context?

Disaster, crisis & collapse: why is societal resilience necessary?