ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the potential for a radical notion of resilience to challenge hegemonic
understandings of everyday capitalist life. Resilience has been increasingly criticised inmany fields
for focussing on attempts to bounce back or maintain the status quo following a disturbance. Such
conceptualisations can uphold the hegemony of discourses of stability and are potentially
unhelpful for groups seeking to achieve radical change. Despite this, the concept is fast subsuming
sustainability as the latest catch phrase for community organisations wishing to address social and
environmental injustices. Grassroots groups are mobilising activism to shape this interpretation
through post-capitalist visions – creating alternatives to dominant capitalist narratives in the
present. This chapter will discuss the expression of these radical notions of resilience through
exploring how activism intersects with experiences of disaster through the example provided
by Project Lyttelton, a community organisation at the epicentre of the 22 February 2011
Christchurch earthquake in Aotearoa, New Zealand. By exploring this tension between resi-
lience and post-capitalist activism, this chapter contributes to an emerging area of critique
through articulating a more nuanced understanding of the radical potential for what is often
expressed as an inherently non-radical concept.
