s 2021 comes to an end, the World Health Organization has issued a message of optimism that “2022 can mark the end of COVID’S acute stage.” This glimmer of hope opens up the possibility of recovery, building a ‘new normal’, and, if we are bold, transformation. This period of life in which a microscopic entity shut down the world, halted connections and mobility have shed light on features of our human existence that have always been there, but were less apparent: deep inequalities, inhumane suffering, and disparities in access to opportunities, resources, and basic health care. The COVID recovery should not mean going back to normal, but incorporating the lessons of this global crisis to enable profound transformations of our societies.
Resilience is commonly put forward in times of crisis as a way to enable reconstruction and transformation. If you were not familiar with the versatility of the concept, almost two years of COVID-19 pandemic will have made sure that you have heard the word resilience a lot, across a number of different contexts, platforms and sectors. Resilience is understood as central to respond to global challenges and has gained increased attention across sectors. In business, resilience is an indicator of performant strategies. A number of management consultancies such as McKinsey, Deloitte or PWC focused on “strategic resilience” for businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. Resilience also features in national and international policy agendas such as when French president Emmanuel Macron named the early stages of the pandemic response in France “Opération résilience” or U.S. President Joe Biden’s "roadmap to climate-resilient economy.” Likewise, the resilience of health systems has been at the center of considerations for how nations and their systems can cope with the pandemic. For psychologists, the concept of resilience has been central in research on trauma and childhood development, made particularly salient due to the pandemic’s impacts on youth. The popularity of the term has increased in a time of global crisis, where the question of how we cope and how we move forward has been at the core of our considerations in the last two years.
The heightened focus on resilience opens the question on what the concept can offer us as we move through the next stages of the pandemic, and how it can help us think of and live with a “new normal.” I would like to propose three core principles for thinking about how resilience can be mobilized in a more significant way to foster meaningful transformation: the three Rs of reflection, recognition and reparation.
- Reflection
The COVID-19 pandemic has shed a sharp light upon the deep structural inequalities and discrimination that shape our societies— locally, nationally and globally. It has made the injustices of our world impossible to ignore, whether this is in terms of poverty, access to healthcare, racism, or oppression. With this in mind, what next normal can we aspire to? What transformations are necessary to build a new normal that addresses global challenges while tackling inequality and injustice? This requires a deep reflection upon the world we live in and the very conditions of our existence. A reflection on the types of transformation that society needs and what we can learn from past mistakes is essential. This reflection requires moving past short-term thinking and individualized solutions to adopt a broader systemic view of the transformations that need to take place.
- Recognition
One difficulty is that the notion of resilience is often brandished as a characteristic that pertains to the individual. Resilience understood as highly individualized and actualized might resemble what is aptly described as the “neoliberalism of emotions,” a form of self-help in which the onus is put on the individual no matter what external factors, structures, context, or disaster have been thrown their way. This view overlooks the fact that the responsibility of the individual cannot be understood apart from the multitude of connections and forms of interdependence that shape human life. We need systems, supports, and networks to get through crises and transform lives so that a new normal becomes possible. This wider understanding demands the recognition of our fundamental interdependence at multiple levels: local, national, global. The latest variant of the coronavirus, has shown that vaccine equity and global cooperation are non-negotiable essentials to tackle the pandemic. This recognition of the ways our lives are fundamentally intertwined with the lives of others is the foundation to the essential trust needed to work together, address risk, and build a better future. This goes for so many other areas of human life. As such, resilience needs to be thought of in global terms.
- Reparation
Reparation might be the less intuitive or least comfortable principle to embrace for our “new normal” because it is inscribed within the recognition of inequalities and discrimination that underpin the “old normal.” It demands a deep and hard look at the power hierarchies and forms of oppression upon which world systems are built and upon which the privileged few have thrived. Yet reparation is fundamental to our collective global resilience. Our imagined “next normal” will require more than a superficial understanding of resilience. Resilience, like transformation, is not something that happens gently. Resilience is not linear. It might be tortuous, unpredictable, and even disappointing at times. It entails adaptation, risk, and resistance. Resilience might be accompanied by anger, which acts as the very motor for transformation. The Black Lives Matter movement showed how inane the idea of resilience might be in the face of glaring injustices, in which a cry for change is driven by despair and outrage. There is no desire here to ‘spring back into shape’, when the very shape of existence is injustice, racism, and cruelty. The next normal requires reparation of the deep injustices that shape the world. At the dawn of 2022, a message is clear: we cannot build a new ‘post-pandemic’ normal without global cooperation and directly addressing world disparities and injustice.
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Resilience as Transformation for a Post-Pandemic World
Photo by Karim Manjra via Unsplash.
January 31, 2022
As we seek to move beyond the pandemic, there are questions about what is needed to build resilience and sustainability into the next normal. We should be guided by the principles of reflection, recognition, and reparation, writes Durham University's Oakleigh Welply.
A
s 2021 comes to an end, the World Health Organization has issued a message of optimism that “2022 can mark the end of COVID’S acute stage.” This glimmer of hope opens up the possibility of recovery, building a ‘new normal’, and, if we are bold, transformation. This period of life in which a microscopic entity shut down the world, halted connections and mobility have shed light on features of our human existence that have always been there, but were less apparent: deep inequalities, inhumane suffering, and disparities in access to opportunities, resources, and basic health care. The COVID recovery should not mean going back to normal, but incorporating the lessons of this global crisis to enable profound transformations of our societies.
Resilience is commonly put forward in times of crisis as a way to enable reconstruction and transformation. If you were not familiar with the versatility of the concept, almost two years of COVID-19 pandemic will have made sure that you have heard the word resilience a lot, across a number of different contexts, platforms and sectors. Resilience is understood as central to respond to global challenges and has gained increased attention across sectors. In business, resilience is an indicator of performant strategies. A number of management consultancies such as McKinsey, Deloitte or PWC focused on “strategic resilience” for businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. Resilience also features in national and international policy agendas such as when French president Emmanuel Macron named the early stages of the pandemic response in France “Opération résilience” or U.S. President Joe Biden’s "roadmap to climate-resilient economy.” Likewise, the resilience of health systems has been at the center of considerations for how nations and their systems can cope with the pandemic. For psychologists, the concept of resilience has been central in research on trauma and childhood development, made particularly salient due to the pandemic’s impacts on youth. The popularity of the term has increased in a time of global crisis, where the question of how we cope and how we move forward has been at the core of our considerations in the last two years.
The heightened focus on resilience opens the question on what the concept can offer us as we move through the next stages of the pandemic, and how it can help us think of and live with a “new normal.” I would like to propose three core principles for thinking about how resilience can be mobilized in a more significant way to foster meaningful transformation: the three Rs of reflection, recognition and reparation.
- Reflection
The COVID-19 pandemic has shed a sharp light upon the deep structural inequalities and discrimination that shape our societies— locally, nationally and globally. It has made the injustices of our world impossible to ignore, whether this is in terms of poverty, access to healthcare, racism, or oppression. With this in mind, what next normal can we aspire to? What transformations are necessary to build a new normal that addresses global challenges while tackling inequality and injustice? This requires a deep reflection upon the world we live in and the very conditions of our existence. A reflection on the types of transformation that society needs and what we can learn from past mistakes is essential. This reflection requires moving past short-term thinking and individualized solutions to adopt a broader systemic view of the transformations that need to take place.
- Recognition
One difficulty is that the notion of resilience is often brandished as a characteristic that pertains to the individual. Resilience understood as highly individualized and actualized might resemble what is aptly described as the “neoliberalism of emotions,” a form of self-help in which the onus is put on the individual no matter what external factors, structures, context, or disaster have been thrown their way. This view overlooks the fact that the responsibility of the individual cannot be understood apart from the multitude of connections and forms of interdependence that shape human life. We need systems, supports, and networks to get through crises and transform lives so that a new normal becomes possible. This wider understanding demands the recognition of our fundamental interdependence at multiple levels: local, national, global. The latest variant of the coronavirus, has shown that vaccine equity and global cooperation are non-negotiable essentials to tackle the pandemic. This recognition of the ways our lives are fundamentally intertwined with the lives of others is the foundation to the essential trust needed to work together, address risk, and build a better future. This goes for so many other areas of human life. As such, resilience needs to be thought of in global terms.
- Reparation
Reparation might be the less intuitive or least comfortable principle to embrace for our “new normal” because it is inscribed within the recognition of inequalities and discrimination that underpin the “old normal.” It demands a deep and hard look at the power hierarchies and forms of oppression upon which world systems are built and upon which the privileged few have thrived. Yet reparation is fundamental to our collective global resilience. Our imagined “next normal” will require more than a superficial understanding of resilience. Resilience, like transformation, is not something that happens gently. Resilience is not linear. It might be tortuous, unpredictable, and even disappointing at times. It entails adaptation, risk, and resistance. Resilience might be accompanied by anger, which acts as the very motor for transformation. The Black Lives Matter movement showed how inane the idea of resilience might be in the face of glaring injustices, in which a cry for change is driven by despair and outrage. There is no desire here to ‘spring back into shape’, when the very shape of existence is injustice, racism, and cruelty. The next normal requires reparation of the deep injustices that shape the world. At the dawn of 2022, a message is clear: we cannot build a new ‘post-pandemic’ normal without global cooperation and directly addressing world disparities and injustice.
