Abstract

Our world is uncertain, complex, ambiguous and dynamic, and it has been increasingly acknowledged that society has to be resilient to be sustainable. Although there has been a proliferation of approaches to resilience in recent years, many have been developed for other types of systems and for other purposes. Even among the approaches explicitly addressing societal resilience, few give much guidance on how to assess and develop resilience in practice. At least with a clear connection to theory. The seminar focuses on contrasting different approaches to the concept of resilience and on highlighting one approach that operationalises it to link the conceptual with the practical.

Per Becker is Director of Centre for Societal Resilience at Lund University, Sweden. He has combined research and education with a career in humanitarian assistance and international development cooperation focused on Disaster Risk Reduction, Recovery and Conflict Management. Per has extensive field experience and works frequently for the Swedish government and the Red Cross/Crescent Movement around the world. Most recently as Regional Disaster Risk Management Coordinator at the IFRC regional office in Dakar. Per is interested in transdisciplinary research of sustainability and social change, of what makes society resilient to disturbances, disruptions and disasters, and of capacity development as an intentional tool for creating and maintaining such resilience.