résilience

Résilience is a cross-disciplinary concept describing the capacity of a system—whether an individual, a community, an ecosystem, or infrastructure—to anticipate, withstand, adapt to, and recover from disturbances while maintaining essential function, structure, and identity. The term is used across fields such as psychology, ecology, engineering, and sociology, and can refer to natural, built, or social systems.

Etymology and scope: the word comes from Latin resiliens, meaning “rebounding,” via French into English. In science, resilience was popularized in ecology by C. S. Holling in 1973 to describe how systems absorb shocks and reorganize. In psychology, resilience research grew later, focusing on how individuals cope with adversity and maintain functioning.

Conceptual approaches: in ecology, resilience involves thresholds, adaptive cycles, and potential regime shifts, highlighting a system’s capacity to absorb disturbance and reorganize. In psychology, resilience encompasses processes and traits—such as coping strategies, social support, and meaning-making—that help individuals recover from stress. Measurement approaches include scales like the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and the Brief Resilience Scale. In engineering and risk management, resilience engineering investigates how complex systems prevent failures and continue operating under disruption.

Applications: resilience informs disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, urban planning, and organizational continuity. It supports strategies to absorb shocks, adapt to changing conditions, and, when necessary, transform structures to improve long-term sustainability.

Critiques: some scholars warn that resilience rhetoric can normalize hardship, place responsibility on individuals rather than institutions, or obscure structural inequities. Effective use emphasizes equity, transparent governance, and attention to power dynamics while fostering adaptive capacity.