Resilience: Navigating Challenges of Modern Life (Fielding Monograph Series)

Today, the idea of being “resilient” or “building resilience” has become a common feature of modern life. In popular and academic literature, increasing resilience is promoted as a desirable goal for not only individuals, but also organizations, communities—even our planet. But what is resilience, really? To answer that question, both practitioners and scholars need to better engage with real-life situations, rather than pure theory. That is the purpose of this book. It presents six articles by ten authors who use original academic and field research to analyze and discuss core aspects of resilience in practice, deepening our understanding of this profound and promising human attribute. For example, one paradox of resilience is that it is most visible amid tension, turbulence, and trauma. Another is that its growth is often the result of adversity. All of these issues are raised as our authors discuss resilience as both an adaptive and transformative characteristic, not only in interpersonal relationships but also within modern communities and organizations.