Endanleiki

Endanleiki is a term used in contemporary resilience studies to describe the capacity of a social-ecological system to absorb disturbance while undergoing transformation, thereby maintaining essential functions and identity.

The coinage appears in scholarly discussions from the early 2010s and has since circulated in interdisciplinary policy debates. It is treated as a neologism rather than a term from a fixed taxonomy, with no single standardized etymology.

Conceptually, endanleiki emphasizes three elements: persistence of core functions or goals, adaptive reconfiguration of structures and processes, and cross-scale coordination that links actors, institutions, and ecological dynamics.

In practice, it is used to describe how cities, ecosystems, and networks respond to stressors such as climate events, economic shocks, or social change, by reorganizing while preserving identity rather than returning to an earlier state.

Critics argue that the term can be too broad to support precise measurement and may blend distinct ideas of resilience and transformation. Proponents note its emphasis on both continuity and change as a useful heuristic.