It seems the jury is still out on resilience towards adaptive capacity or adaptive capacity towards resilience (in social-ecological systems). Do you see resilience as a subset of adaptive capacity or vice versa (which seems the conventional wisdom ). Can you provide any papers in these respects?
Dear Kenrick,
Resilience IS the capacity to adapt not towards not from and so forth:
Full Definition of resilience (Merriam Webster)
1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
Article Moral Distress and its Interconnection with Moral Sensitivit...
Resilience implies that we know what must be sustained (in the face of defined but varied shocks that threaten existence or viability) and have the capacity to maintain that. On Resilient Organizations, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266476961_On_Resilient_Organizations, might be of interest.
Article On Resilient Organizations
Interested in the development of strategies to address the problem of the crisis
climate in the tropics, developed this document proposes a methodological framework for undertake a thoughtful analysis based on the capital of the community before climate vulnerability. It takes as its central axis a population of the peninsula
Yucatan in Mexico and develops in an orderly and systematic study broad of what happens within the framework of the seven capitals of the community. The book is based on a rich and well analyzed basis information, figures, tables and images that highlight the need for propose various actions that lead to strengthen capacity building, entrepreneurship adaptive actions promoting synergies between different key people; and the conservation of natural resources, the development of new economic options to mitigate the effects of the crisis and thus improving the infrastructure available to mitigate the effects of
climate vulnerability.
Please see:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236029713_Vulnerabilidad_social_ante_el_cambio_climatico_retos_y_propuestas_de_politicas_desde_un_enfoque_de_equidad_social
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236029695_Vulnerabilidad_social_frente_al_cambio_climatico_retos_y_propuestas_de_politicas_desde_un_enfoque_de_genero?ev=prf_pub
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236029734_CAPITALES_DE_LA_COMUNIDAD_MEDIOS_DE_VIDA_Y_VULNERABILIDAD_SOCIAL_ANTE_HURACANES_EN_LA_COSTA_YUCATECA_UN_ACERCAMIENTO_A_TRAVES_DE_LA_EXPERIENCIA_DE_SAN_FELIPE_YUCATAN?ev=prf_pub
Data Vulnerabilidad social frente al cambio climático: retos y pr...
Book CAPITALES DE LA COMUNIDAD, MEDIOS DE VIDA Y VULNERABILIDAD S...
Data Vulnerabilidad social ante el cambio climático: retos y prop...
Some may feel I speak out of turn here. It is not necessarily a good idea to rely totally upon one dictionary for the final word regarding the definitions of words which are being used as terms within an academic discourse. Much like a legal document you often have a desire to attach very specific meanings to your use of certain words in a particular communication and like a legal document perhaps it would be best to provide your own 'Definition of Terms' section near the start of the discussion.
In my field which is in general dealing with the social and economic aspects of society I would tend to use 'resilience' to signify 'the capacity to recover from disruption', whereas 'the capacity to adapt' would be signified by using the term 'adaptability'. Adaptability is the capacity to respond through modified behaviours to repeated disruptions of a particular class such that the effects of those disruptions tend to be ameliorated in the event of future occurrences.
From which you can see that if I was to rely upon Websters, and perhaps even the Oxford, as my authority my exact intended meaning might be understood inconsistently between two of my readers or may have been seen to be ambiguous or vague. It is always best to be specific about what your intended meaning is and to put limits upon it by confirming up front how you intend to use an important term.
Is the case of these terms' usage in ecology which has given rise to this discussion perhaps more to do with etymology than with concepts? Or a bit of both perhaps?
“Résilience” is a classical concept in the field of materials science (already known for decades). It is used in French to feature a material’s resistance to undergo shock. It gives the material’s ability to absorb energy and deform without getting fractured. It is measured by an impact (= shock) test : see the Charpy and Izod impact tests. In English, the word is usually translated by “toughness”, seldom also by “resilience”, but still with the meaning in connection with materials resistance. I didn’t make specific research on it, but it could be that the more recent use of “resilience” in social/ecological systems has its historical roots in the already old concept of “resilience” in materials science. As life includes adaptation to all kind of daily challenges from the environment, the word “resilience” applied to humans or to ecological systems could have been initially chosen as the best word to refer to that kind of adaptation that allows to cope with (severe) psychological/environmental shocks.
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