What do we mean by resilience?

How do we define resilience?

Much like with the various approaches to “development,” discrepancies abound in the use of the term “resilience” and the related concept of “vulnerability” across disciplines and between academic and practitioner sectors. This can often hamper the communication, collaboration and innovation needed for much development work, including in the realm of mapping. Literatures on vulnerability and resilience are vast, interdisciplinary, and expanding. In some fields, such as ecology and engineering, resilience is taken to indicate the ability of a system to absorb changes, recover and still perform as a system, or the ability to persist and adapt. In other fields, such as geography, resilience is theorized as both process and product of coupled human-environmental shock and stress, whether slow onset or abrupt. Some scholars critique the term resilience altogether, in that it may tend to obfuscate the underlying negative consequences, underestimate the role of power and conflict or reflect a normative agenda.

Remember the central mission of USAID? “We partner to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies while advancing our security and prosperity.”

USAID defines resilience as “the ability of people, households, communities, countries, and systems to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth.”

Please go to this online presentation now to listen and follow:

• Section 1: Impetus and rationale for resilience

• Section 2: Resilience definition and key concepts

(If you are interested it is OPTIONAL to follow the rest of the course).

How do we measure resilience and vulnerability?

In order to know whether progress towards achieving resilience is being made, it is important to measure it. USAID has identified some ways for practitioners to do so. Read this two page explanation (you do not need to read all of the appendices, just take a look through them.)

How do we map chronic vulnerability?

The USAID GeoCenter, in collaboration with researchers at West Virginia University that are part of our mapping consortium, have developed a methodology that helps to visualize chronic vulnerability across places.

Read about this kind of analysis here.

(If you have trouble with this link, you can also download the pdf from the file attached to the bottom of this page.)

RELFECTION QUESTIONS

Q: What are some additional ways to measure resilience as defined by USAID?

Q: How does mapping chronic vulnerability help us better understand the resilience of particular places?

Q: How can data be volunteered by citizens, such as through open or participatory mapping to give insights about vulnerability and resilience?