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