Following this argument, orientation of these conceptual investigations (resilience or vulnerability) should not be oblivious of political analysis which might
help understand why and how, “environmental risk in the city is interpreted as an
outcome of the political interests and struggles over power that shapes the urban
environment and society” [74]. As Comfort et al. recall:
Some cities do better in the face of disaster than others. It is tempting to describe apparent
success in terms of resilience and apparent failure in terms of a shopping list of explanatory
variables. Resilience then becomes the synonym for survival and the prescribed antidote for
administrative shortcomings. This is too simple (…) Far from a fix-it-and-forget-it
approach, resilience is the outcome of a long-term process, enduring resilience is a balancing act between risk and resources, between vulnerabilities and escalating or unmanageable risk [75]: 272–273.
In 2009, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) have
tried to unifies these array of definitions, proposing the following synthesis: “The
ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb,
accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient
manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic
structures and functions” [76].
7 Trying to account for the multiplicity of situations
in which resilience could emerge, UNISDR definition was building years of cases
studies and an extensive body of literature and modelization, both empirical and
theoretical, that had seen a succession of conceptual apparatus trying to account for
the complexity of the phenomenon to be both described and tackled. This heuristic
dimension was confirmed in 2014 when the National Science Foundation
(NSF) announced that 50 researchers had been awarded a total of 17 million dollars
[77] to “investigate questions related to vulnerability, risk and resilience in the face
of various hazards as well as the everyday degradation that infrastructures face.”
Indeed, and perhaps because of this polysemic epistemology
8,9 the concept of
resilience seems to have been successful in fostering discussions between scientists
7
During first conference in 2005 in Kobe Japan was adopted The Hyogo Framework for Action
2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters which contributed to
the diffusion of the concepts of resilience define as “the ability of a system, community or society
exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a
timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic
structures and functions” [76].
8
“There is no universal definition of the concept of resilience that can be applied to all domains.
That said, the English term resilience, itself derived from the Latin verb resilire (to bounce), is
made up of re (again) and salire (rise), which implies a retroactive effect [10]. While in the 1970s
the term was associated with the ability to absorb and overcome the effects of significant, unexpected and brutal disruption to ecological systems, hybrid definitions have since emerged in many
disciplines including geography, psychology, sociology, organizational sciences, ergo-psychology,
etc. Within this smorgasbord of definitions, two fundamental ideas prevail: community and the
process.” [43]: 3 this volume.
9
Alexander [78] noted: “In theory, the term can be applied to any phenomenon that involves
shocks to a system, whether it be physical or social, and whether the shock involve disasters or
merely a hard knock in the literal or figurative sense” (p. 2713).
342
C. Mazel-Cabasse
help understand why and how, “environmental risk in the city is interpreted as an
outcome of the political interests and struggles over power that shapes the urban
environment and society” [74]. As Comfort et al. recall:
Some cities do better in the face of disaster than others. It is tempting to describe apparent
success in terms of resilience and apparent failure in terms of a shopping list of explanatory
variables. Resilience then becomes the synonym for survival and the prescribed antidote for
administrative shortcomings. This is too simple (…) Far from a fix-it-and-forget-it
approach, resilience is the outcome of a long-term process, enduring resilience is a balancing act between risk and resources, between vulnerabilities and escalating or unmanageable risk [75]: 272–273.
In 2009, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) have
tried to unifies these array of definitions, proposing the following synthesis: “The
ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb,
accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient
manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic
structures and functions” [76].
7 Trying to account for the multiplicity of situations
in which resilience could emerge, UNISDR definition was building years of cases
studies and an extensive body of literature and modelization, both empirical and
theoretical, that had seen a succession of conceptual apparatus trying to account for
the complexity of the phenomenon to be both described and tackled. This heuristic
dimension was confirmed in 2014 when the National Science Foundation
(NSF) announced that 50 researchers had been awarded a total of 17 million dollars
[77] to “investigate questions related to vulnerability, risk and resilience in the face
of various hazards as well as the everyday degradation that infrastructures face.”
Indeed, and perhaps because of this polysemic epistemology
8,9 the concept of
resilience seems to have been successful in fostering discussions between scientists
7
During first conference in 2005 in Kobe Japan was adopted The Hyogo Framework for Action
2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters which contributed to
the diffusion of the concepts of resilience define as “the ability of a system, community or society
exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a
timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic
structures and functions” [76].
8
“There is no universal definition of the concept of resilience that can be applied to all domains.
That said, the English term resilience, itself derived from the Latin verb resilire (to bounce), is
made up of re (again) and salire (rise), which implies a retroactive effect [10]. While in the 1970s
the term was associated with the ability to absorb and overcome the effects of significant, unexpected and brutal disruption to ecological systems, hybrid definitions have since emerged in many
disciplines including geography, psychology, sociology, organizational sciences, ergo-psychology,
etc. Within this smorgasbord of definitions, two fundamental ideas prevail: community and the
process.” [43]: 3 this volume.
9
Alexander [78] noted: “In theory, the term can be applied to any phenomenon that involves
shocks to a system, whether it be physical or social, and whether the shock involve disasters or
merely a hard knock in the literal or figurative sense” (p. 2713).
342
C. Mazel-Cabasse