The Emergence of Resilience in Disaster Research

Abstract

The contribution describes the emergence and development of the resilience concept within socio-scientific disaster research. In addition to psychological approaches references are usually made to the ecosystem research of Holling (1973) and succeeding approaches for coupled Social-Ecological Systems (SES). But for disaster research rather the concept of vulnerability is a substantial precursor. Vulnerability research tries to take the naturalness out of so-called natural disasters. It dates back to the 1970ies and has its roots in poverty and famine research as well as Human Ecology (Sen 1982; Chambers/Conway 1991). In the perspective of vulnerability disasters originate from the interaction of natural or societal stressors with local unsafe conditions that are shaped by temporally and spatially distant social processes. Resilience entered the vulnerability paradigm as the capacity of social systems to cope with such perturbations. In the sequel the resilience concept became a distinct concept within disaster research focusing on everyday activities and the factors that prevent disasters or enable to cope with them. From the perspective of social resilience a variety of social practices prior, during and after disasters form adaption to prevent future disasters, situational coping strategies to processes of reconstruction, but also social and cultural interpretative patterns that make collective stress bearable come to the fore. Originating from the vulnerability concept the local potential to influence broader societal processes leading to disasters is addressed within the concept of social resilience.