Welcome to the world of Resilience thinking!

The picture at the head of this page is a person casting a net for shrimp on the South Carolina coast, near Isle of Palms. Many people here in the “Lowcountry” rely upon coastal ecosystems for their sustenance–both in terms of their household subsistence as well as through their participation in the capitalist economy. The work that I do as an Assistant Professor at the College of Charleston examines how the changes in coastal ecosystems produces changes in society, just as much as society affects change on coastal ecosystems. Academics have not always asked such questions, though. Traditional academics might have looked at the fisherman in this photo, and his social world, exclusively through the lenses of the social sciences, while others might have looked at the world of the shrimp, only through the lenses of the natural sciences. But academics have come to realize that segmenting the world into separate “social” and “natural” systems have not allowed us to pursue questions about adaptation to environmental change….

“Resilience” is just an interdisciplinary framework through which I understand this human-environment relationship captured by the shrimper casting his net–there are other frameworks out there, but this is one that I find useful. In this blog we will explore both the utility and the limitations of this framework.

Okay, so what next? First, take a look at this video on youtube by Brian Walker, and then read where “resilience thinking” all started….

Holling 1973 “Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems,” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics : 1-23.

Holling, C.S., 2001 “Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems,” Ecosystems 4: 390-405.

Walker, Brian, and David Salt 2006. “Living in a Complex World: An Introduction to Resilience Thinking,” in Walker and Salt, Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World. Washington, DC: Island Press. Read pgs 1-15.

2 thoughts on “Welcome to the world of Resilience thinking!

  1. Nivedita Hansraj

    Hi,
    I am interested to expand my understanding of reselience thinking. I work in the health sector, and have an interest in the study of migrant integration. I have presented few papers on migrant integration, with focus on the economic and social indicators of integration in an urban mileu. I have recently come across papers on social-ecological aspects of reselience, and I want to understand more about this. If you can connect me to researchers, or a post-doctoral programme that i could connect to.

    Look forward to hear from you.
    Thanks.
    Nivedita

    PS: I am from New Delhi, India and I work in an NGO since last 5 years. FOcus of work is on REproductive Health.

    Reply
    1. resilience Post author

      Hi Nivedita! I would recommend reading through our blog posts, and to check out the book Resilience Thinking itself, because that is the best way to get into the theory and its use. You should also look at resiliencealliance.org for a lot more information on this approach, as well as other researchers to network with. Good luck with everything!

      Reply

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