Thinking in Common: Resilience

In this thinking-in common session we explore the concept of resilience. Resilience is a term with a long history and diffuse origins. More recently this term has come to circulate across numerous disciplines from economics to health to considerations of infrastructure. As the concept has spread it has moved from being a suite of measurable properties to a politically potent metaphor and, increasingly, a political objective in many policies and programs. As appeals to ‘become resilient’ or ‘build resilience’ proliferate it is an open question as to whether or not the term has reached its ‘use by date’.This panel explores how the concept of resilience and its complex uses and effects might be recovered. Can resilience provide a way of describing other and better economies, politics, cities and forms of caring for people and places in these dark times?