Linking resilience, vulnerability, social capital and risk awareness for crisis and disaster research

Abstract

Crisis and disaster research has extensively contributed to theoretical, conceptual, methodological and empirical advances in the understanding of resilience, vulnerability, social capital and risk awareness. These concepts identify complex social phenomena, which are intensified, in both positive and negative terms, by crises and disasters. However, the accumulation of knowledge about these notions has produced a vast range of definitions, which affects the way they are used in the study of crises and disasters. This paper sets a research agenda, by promoting a conceptual model to help simplify and make more researchable these complex concepts. This model stems from a triangulation of methods, with the goal of providing more researchable definitions of these notions and of illustrating linkages among them, seldom addressed in the way this model suggests, in the context of the crisis management cycle.