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Theorising Resilience

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Relational Vulnerability

Part of the book series: Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies ((PSLS))

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Abstract

This chapter examines resilience as a state response to vulnerability. Addressing the universal model’s tendency to under-theorise resilience, it seeks to locate the normative goals that the state should strive to achieve when distributing resources across populations. The chapter examines resilience’s psychological history as an internal disposition enabling recovery from traumatic events, as well as how this has been employed in neoliberal discourse to argue for individual responsibility for overcoming hardship. It argues that, whereas vulnerability theory’s contrasting emphasis on state-controlled external resources provides a more satisfactory model of resilience, attention must also be given to resilience’s internal component—the state of feeling resilient. It concludes that the state should not only strive to achieve equal access to resources but must also promote dependency-workers’ relational autonomy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Living Together https://www.advicenow.org.uk/living-together (accessed 1 August 2020).

  2. 2.

    Ibid. For critique, see Reece (2015).

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  1. School of Law, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

    Ellen Gordon-Bouvier

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  1. Ellen Gordon-Bouvier
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Correspondence to Ellen Gordon-Bouvier .

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Gordon-Bouvier, E. (2020). Theorising Resilience. In: Relational Vulnerability. Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61358-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61358-7_6

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-61357-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-61358-7

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