Introduction: Resilience as sociotechnical construct

Abstract

What do the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York, the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan, and the volcano eruption in Central Java, Indonesia have in common? Each of these catastrophic events entails massive devastation on physical infrastructures, and causes tremendous amounts of social and economic losses. Further, it spawns political ramifications that could have resulted in deep, and often dramatic, political changes. Despite differing causing agents-a Jihadist terrorist group, a failure of emergency instruments, and a natural force, respectively-and different degrees of destruction, these disasters share one trait; each is a foray against the sociotechnical system that embodies modern culture. Yet, it is this very core of our technological society that differentiates one disaster from another. For it is the sociotechnical system built and arranged in such a way to support human life that defines how a society is able to survive shocks and disturbances, be they natural or man-made. In other words, the resilience of sociotechnical systems determines whether a crisis will be short-lived or prolonged in the aftermath of disaster.