Collective resilience

Abstract

A classic pitfall of transitional justice discourse and practice resides in creating a binary between active perpetrators and passive victims. This account, however, tends to overlook emergent forms of coordination, solidarity and collective agency within survivor communities. A parallel can be observed in social psychological research on collective behaviour in mass emergencies and disasters. While early theories suggested that such events lead to psychological vulnerability and a breakdown of norms, accumulated evidence of coordination and social support among survivors is more consistent with a social identity model of collective psychosocial resilience. We apply this model to analyse evidence from a growing number of studies on armed conflicts that suggest that social cooperation and organization can arise as a response to collective violence via shared identity. Drawing on research conducted in different conflict-affected societies, we describe various instances of collective resilience among existing and emergent communities, including cases of collective civilian organization and mobilization for peace and against the divisive logic of violence.