Publication

This paper critically examines current approaches to assessing resilience. It contends that arguments about the definition of resilience, or trying to identify in advance the individual abilities that people may rely on, is a poor starting point for thinking about ways to assess resilience. This is because resilience is not a single thing or class of activities, but requires different, contextual approaches to diverse challenges. The author looks at some of the weaknesses and dangers in current attempts to quantify resilience and offers a way of meeting the policy, programming and administrative demands for assessing resilience.