A Brief History of RESILIENCE David Alexander University College London
May 10, 2015
A Brief History of
RESILIENCEA Brief History of
RESILIENCE
David AlexanderUniversity College London
There'sa uniqueLondonflavour toresilience:I willexplainwhy....
Caveat emptor: this is a storyof dead white males, not ofwomen or ethnic diversity.
Much as I would like to,I can't rewrite history.
RESILIENCE: the abilityto overcome the impactsof large, negative events
[by a combination of resistance and adaptation].
Not the only definition,not exclusive,
not comprehensive,and not incontestable.
Hypothesis: by examining the history of the resilience concept,we can understand better its meanings in the context of contemporary science.A recent publication listed28 definitions of resilience.
"Originally developed as an ecologicalconcept, resilience is being applied to coupled human-environment systems."(Berkes 2007, p. 286)
"The study of resilience tracesits roots back a scant 50 years."(Goldstein and Brooks 2006, p. 3)
"The concept of resilience was originallydeveloped in the field of ecology."(Djalate et al. 2011, p. 3)
Marcus Tullius CiceroCicero
106 - 43 BCOrationes
resilio, resilire - to rebound
Marcus Annaeus SenecaSeneca the Elder
54 BC - AD 39Controversiae
resilio, resilire - leap, to leap
...quanto minus quam in templum resiliuit?
Publius Ovidius NasoOvid
43 BC – AD 17/18Metamorphoses
resilio, resilire - to shrink, contract
Marcus Fabius QuintilianusQuintilian
AD 35 - 100Institutio Oratoria
resilio, resilire - to avoid
Gaius Plinius SecundusPliny the Elder
AD 23 –79Naturalis Historia
resilio, resilire - leaping frogs and fleas
St Jerome347-420
St John Chrysostom347-407
Sagitta in lapidem numquam figitur,interdum resiliens percutit dirigentem.
"An arrow never lodges in a stone:often it recoils upon its sender."
Reslience: a concept on the move
résiler
Unverwüstlichkeit
resile
Henry VIII1491-1547
Anne Boleyn1485-1536
"if the Quene wold herafter resile and goo back"Stephen Gardiner (1483-1555), writing
at Woodstock on 1 September 1529to Thomas Wolsey (1473-1530).
Resilience
English sciencerises to thechallenge.
The "cradle"of resilience:
Canonbury TowerLondon N1.
Built in 1509to survive the
Universal Deluge:inhabited in 1625 by Francis Bacon.
3.9 km
Francis Bacon1561-1626
Francis BaconSylva Sylvarum, 1625
[Are we to criticise him for usingthe "greengrocer's apostrophe"?]
John Amos Comenius1592-1670
Lumen divinum reformatae synopsis"Natural Philosophy Reformed by
Divine Light" (Leipzig, 1633, tr. 1651)
Resiliency
Thomas Blount 1619-79Glossographia, 1661
"A Dictionary of the HardWords of Whatsoever Language"
First dictionary definition
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeHymn to Earth
in Friendship's Offering1834
William J.M. Rankine1858-67
Manual of Applied Mechanics
William J.M. Rankine, 1858-67A Manual of Applied Mechanics
Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, 1857
Perry noted the resilience of the Japaneseafter the Ansei Great Earthquakes, 1854-5
Norman Garmezy1918-2009
Psychologist
Ludwig Von Bertalanffy1901-72General
SystemsTheory
Prof. CrawfordStanley ('Buzz')
Holling[b. 1930],Canadiansystems
ecologist,Universityof Florida
Annual Review of Ecology & Systematics 4 (1973)
"But there is another property, termed resilience, that is a
measureof the persistence of systems and of their ability to absorb change and disturbance and
still maintain the same relationships
betweenpopulations or state variables."
(Holling 1973, p.14)
• analysis of the stability of ecological assemblages
• ideal for island ecology and other well-defined systems
• in line with GST resilience is an equilibrium tendency
• promotes a narrow view of the resilience concept
• Holling's approach has been widely used uncritically.
Holling's use of the resilience concept
"Resilience is a systems concept*, andthe social-ecological system, as an
integrated and interdependent unit,may itself be considered a complex
adaptive system."(Berkes and Ross 2013, p. 14)
*not necessarily!
Causes of disasternatural
geophysical,technological,
socialHistorysingle andcumulativeimpactof pastdisasters
Humancultures
constraints
andopportunit
ies IMPACTSIMPACTS
Adaptationto risk
RESILIENCE
Neil AdgerUniversity of East Anglia
Progress in HumanGeography, 2000
Urie Bronfenbrenner1917-2005
SocietyCulturePoliticsEconomyWelfare
HospitalsChurchMedia
Community-based
services
FamilyCommuni
tyWorkplac
eindivid
ual
Bronfenbrenner's community resilience theory
Microsystem
MesosystemMacrosystem
Chronosystem
Exosystem
LAW
STATESMANSHIP
LITERATURE
SCIENTIFICMETHOD
MECHANICS
MANU-FACTURING
ECOLOGY
MANAGEMENT(ADAPTIVE)
CHILDPSYCHOLOGY
ANTHROPOLOGYSOCIAL
RESEARCH
DISASTER RISKREDUCTION
SUSTAINABILITYSCIENCE CLIMATE CHANGE
ADAPTATION
c. BC 50
AD 15291625
1859
19301950
1973
2000
2010
NATURALHISTORY
RESILIENCE
Social
Tech
nic
al
Physical
Psych
olo
gic
al
CLIMATE CHANGEADAPTATION
DISASTER RISKREDUCTION
OTHER HAZARDSAND RISKS
naturalsocial
technologicalintentionalcompoundcascading
SUSTAINABILITYSCIENCE
Organisationalsystems:management
Socialsystems:behaviour
Naturalsystems:function
Technicalsystems:
malfunction
VulnerabilityHazard
Resilie
nce
Politicalsystems:decisions
physicalenvironmental
socialeconomic
health-relatedcultural
educationalinfrastructuralinstitutional
RESILIENCECOPING
VULNERABILITYFRAGILITY
SUSCEPTIBILITY
Organisation:• public
admin.• private
sector• civil society
Community
Individual
Resilience: facets...
...and relationships
• an objective, a process or a strategy?
• a paradigm, diverse paradigms?
• 'bounce-back' or 'bounce-forward'?
• focuses on the community scale
• can reconcile dynamic & static elements.
Resilience
RESILIENCE:as a material has brittlestrength and ductility:
society must have an optimumcombination of resistance tohazard impacts and ability
to adapt to them.
SocietyCulturePoliticsEconomyWelfare
HospitalsChurchMedia
Community-based
services
FamilyCommuni
tyWorkplac
eindivid
ual
Bronfenbrenner's community resilience theory
Microsystem
MesosystemMacrosystem
Chronosystem
Exosystem
Resilient
culture
Culture of
resilience
INSTRUMENTS OF
DISSEMINATION• mass media• targeted campaign• social networks• internet
Augmentation
MASSEDUCATIONPROGRAMM
E
HUMANCAPITAL
HABIT
CULTURE
The creation of a culture of civil protection
Broaderscope andoutcomes
Changingobjectivesof emergencymanagement
Civil Protection
DisasterManagem
ent
Resilience
Civil Contingencies Management
Disaster Risk Reduction
Natural Hazards and Earth SystemSciences 13(1): 2707-2716 [2013]www.slideshare.com/dealexander
m.slideshare.net/dealexander