“The rubber band is already broken”: An extended case study of UNDP transformative resilience framework in the context of Palestine

ABSTRACT

We critically explore the resilience discourse of the website for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the lead agency for resilience in the Palestinian context, through engagement with the local Palestinian concept of sumud and neoliberal and postcolonial lenses. Our critical analysis of the UNDP resilience discourse identifies three main problems: the linguistic localization of resilience, the claim of Palestinians’ responsibility for resilience, and the normalization of occupation and absence of justice. These three issues provide an opportunity to understand the limitations of the predominant Western interpretation of the UNDP resilience discourse and its inapplicability in the Palestinian context. We advocate for use of our conceptualization of transformative resilience to actively pursue justice in Palestine and similar contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Transformative resilience
• Palestine
• neoliberalism
• postcolonial
• INGOs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).