Literaturdatenbank

This paper examines the development over historical time of the meaning and uses of the term resilience. The objective is to deepen our understanding of how the term came to be adopted in disaster risk reduction and resolve some of the conflicts and controversies that have arisen when it has been used. The paper traces the development of re2silience through the sciences, humanities, and legal and polit3ical spheres. It considers how mechanics passed the word to ecology and psychology, and how from there it was adopted by social research and sustainability science. As other au4thors have noted, as a concept, resilience involves some po5tentially serious conflicts or contradictions, for example be6tween stability and dynamism, or between dynamic equilib7rium (homeostasis) and evolution. Moreover, although the re8silience concept works quite well within the confines of gen9eral systems theory, in situations in which a systems formula10tion inhibits rather than fosters explanation, a different inter11pretation of the term is warranted. This may be the case for disaster risk reduction, which involves transformation rather than preservation of the “state of the system”. The article concludes that the modern conception of resilience derives benefit from a rich history of meanings and applications, but that it is dangerous – or at least potentially disappointing – to read to much into the term as a model and a paradigm.

2013

Krisenvorbereitung & Prävention
Krisenbewältigung

Alexander, David E.

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences

13

10.5194/nhessd-1-1257-2013