ABSTRACT
Resilience has recently been described as a theory of change, a new development paradigm, a defining metaphor for our era, and a buzzword. Clearly the term and the concepts around it have significant resonance and the traction for current thinking and policy on global change, development and environment. The concepts of resilience, development and transformation are the central subjects of this book. This chapter sets out the key arguments and justification for the book, and discusses some of the contemporary framings of resilience. This situates resilience very firmly in a transdisciplinary arena addressing the urgent need for a new set of guiding principles and concepts to inform international development in the age of perceived rapid and large-scale global changes. It presents a number of definitions of resilience and related concepts, and some of the main critiques of resilience science and the policy prescriptions that flow from it. It shows why a political ecology approach – which examines the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes – gives rise to a constructive engagement with, and opens new avenues for, resilience.
