ABSTRACT
Despite the attractiveness of the critical approach to resilience, this chapter interrogates the position in terms of its own potential for reification. It argues that the contingency and instability of various 'practices' made in the name of resilience is sometimes understated in the critical literature. The chapter draws out and problematises the political discourse of resilience. The section on Resilience and market life will consider the dominant framing of resilience that exists in the literature. The second on Towards a performative critique of resilience will then develop a performative critique of this politics of resilience. A section on Performative agency will draw these points together in a discussion of Butler's concept of performative agency. The chapter distinguishes between resilience and neo-liberalism by arguing that a resilient focus on complexity and emergence may actually challenge significant aspects of neo-liberal governance, not least the sanctity of interactive market outcomes.
