This Resilience Scan summarises writing and debates in the field of resilience during the fourth quarter of 2016. It comprises an 'expert view' on an aspect of resilience in practice, analysis of Twitter from the past six months, and summaries of high-impact grey literature and academic journal articles. The final chapter synthesises the insights from literature in terms of five characteristics of resilience: awareness, diversity, self-regulation, integration and adaptiveness.
Self recovery for resilience
It has long been recognised that, rather than remaining passive, disaster-affected groups are the first to respond and to begin recovery from crises. But the recovery process of this 'missing majority' – who rebuild with little or no humanitarian assistance – is not well understood. The expert view also highlights the importance of considering self-recovery beyond only shelter, despite its central role. Pathways to recovery integrate a range of different components, including basic needs, livelihoods and health.
Resilience on Twitter
Climate, urban, agriculture, conflict, water, food security and economic resilience continue to feature prominently in Twitter conversations, but within these areas there have been some interesting shifts since the last Scan. For example, we observed an increase in conversations on agriculture resilience in previously under-represented regional contexts, such as the Caribbean region. And, in conflict resilience, the conversation had shifted further towards migration.
Resilience in the grey literature
This Scan identifies six broad themes in the grey literature: agriculture and food security, social inclusion and protection, conflict and security, disasters and climate resilience, urban and infrastructure resilience, and measurement and resilience. Compared to the Scan last quarter (Resilience Scan October–December 2016), more material discusses agriculture and food security, and there is less material discussing Agenda 2030.
Resilience in the academic literature
Six dominant themes emerged from the review of academic literature from this quarter, of which the most prevalent was adaptiveness. Four of the articles assessed adaptive practices in agriculture, forestry and pastoralism.
