On the Concept of Resilience
Date
2006
Authors
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Volume Title
Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
The concept of resilience comprises physical, biological, psychological, social, and cultural systems. Resilience has been defined in many ways (for example, see Wisner, et al. 2005), to include an ability to "bounce back" and continue to function; predict and prevent potential problems; improvise and recombine resources in new ways; develop a collective and shared vision of dangers and what to do about them; and constant monitoring of threatening contextual conditions (Kendra and Wachtendorf, 2003). For our purpose, we define resilience as physical, biological, personality, social, and cultural systems' capability to effectively absorb, respond, and recover from an internally or externally induced set of extraordinary demands. The complexity inherent in the concept of resilience derives from these multiple systems in which it can be observed in simultaneity, which often do not have the same levels of resillience, and from the interactions and inter-effects that take place among these systems.
Description
Keywords
Resilience, Disaster Recovery