Converging disciplinary understandings of social aspects of resilience

Abstract

Resilience thinking has developed separately in the bodies of literature on social-ecological systems, and that published principally within developmental psychology and mental health on the resilience of individuals. This paper explores what these bodies of literature might learn from the other towards a more integrated and enriched understanding of both social-ecological systems and social resilience. The psychology-based literature recognises a strong set of factors that enhance the strengths of individuals and communities, but lacks a sophisticated integration of the physical environmental context. The social-ecological systems literature offers an excellent foundation in complex adaptive systems, but tends to superimpose ecological concepts of system function onto the human domain, and needs to include an array of core social science concepts that are important to a full understanding of social-ecological systems. An example on north eastern Australia suggests how a converged understanding of social resilience could assist managers to acknowledge, enhance and foster social resilience in linked social-ecological systems.

Keywords:

• social resilience
• social dimensions of resilience
• social-ecological systems
• Queensland
• Australia

Acknowledgements

This work was funded through the Australian Government's Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility (MTSRF) through the then Australian Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, and The University of Queensland. We also thank the staff of the Reef and Rainforest Research Council for their support, and administration of the MTSRF.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.