Urban Resilience in a Global Context

1. Why did you choose this topic?

Many of us at the Center for Metropolitan Studies have been interested in the role of ›resilience‹ in the UN Sustainable Development Goals were developed and implemented.

It seems very clear that immediate action to address global poverty, climate change and other pressing issues need to be identified – but how can one do that by asking the most vulnerable people across the world to ›be resilient‹ in the face of extreme hardship, as many SDG-driven programs seem to do? This book was an attempt to grapple with some of these difficult issues.

2. What new perspectives does your book offer?

The debates about ›resilience‹ tend to fall along two lines – advocates of resilience who cite intersectional challenges that demand community engagement, and critics who see resilience as part of a larger neoliberal project aimed at burden-shifting. Both of these positions need to be interrogated, and multidisciplinary, global research rooted in historical perspectives can help do that. This book tries to engage seriously with a politically charged issue, recognizing that people's lives – and the lives of other species – are profoundly affected by the way we answers we discover.

3. What makes your topic relevant for current research debates?

Whether or not one is an advocate or critic, resilience is deeply entrenched in development theory and practice. To put it simply: Whether or not academics like it, resilience is going to define the way funding and government agencies intervene in the lives of millions of vulnerable people – not to mention the environment – over the coming years. We need to understand how resilience has developed in theory and practice, and to find ways to enhance its potentially productive aspects, while mitigating its potential for harm.

4. Choose one person you would like to discuss your book with!

Aditya Bahadur.

5. Your book summary in one sentence:

This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners to better understand resilience, a development approach that has and will continue to have tremendous impacts on the everyday lives of millions of people around the globe.