The politics of vulnerability and resilience

Abstract

Much conceptual confusion exists over the concepts of vulnerability and (social)resilience, reinforced by the different paradigms (the article identifies four) and disciplinarytraditions underlying their use. While since the 1980s the social construction of "vulnerability"as a driver for disaster received considerable attention, in recent years we have seen increasedattention to people's capacities and resilience. The currently popular "complexity" approachto risk moreover appears to offer ways of breaking through entrenched vulnerabilities. Resiliencehowever is also a political project which, we argue, also has its dark, conservative overtonesand overlooks structural sources of vulnerability that continue to affect hazard-prone actors. We may therefore need to conceive resilience as the potential for social transformation afterdisaster.