Measuring Resilience and the Importance of Resource Connectivities: Revising the Adult Resilience Measure (RRC-ARM)

Abstract

There have been many efforts to measure and quantify resilience, and various scales have been developed. This article draws on a mixed methods study which involved the application of one particular scale—the Resilience Research Centre-Adult Resilience Measure (referred to throughout as the ARM). Rather than focus on the quantitative results, however, which have been presented elsewhere, this unique article draws on the qualitative results of the study—semi-structured interviews with victims-/survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in Bosnia–Herzegovina (BiH), Colombia and Uganda—to explore and discuss some of the ARM’s shortcomings. It develops its empirical analyses around the crucial concept of connectivity, “borrowed” from the field of ecology, and the three elements of the study’s connectivity framework—broken and ruptured connectivities, supportive and sustaining connectivities and new connectivities. Through its analyses, the article highlights aspects of the ARM that could potentially be improved or developed in future research, and it ultimately proposes some concrete revisions to the measure, including two additional scales relating to change and importance, respectively.