Social and Ecological Systems Resilience and Identity

In this chapter, the authors first introduce the notion of social-ecological systems (SES) resilience. They trace the history of the two concepts (SES and resilience), which are interdependent, narrating the interactions between groups of researchers who study social and ecological processes. In the second part of the paper, the authors examine resilience through the specific question of the identity of an SES and how this identity persists or changes. They examine the meaning of identity through a literature review that orients readers to the study of the process of resilience as inextricably shaped by the vulnerabilities embedded in the SES. They claim in this chapter that the disruption of the relationship between natural and social entities that compose an SES leads to a new distribution of vulnerabilities among the entities. After these changes, the SES will be ascribed a new identity that reflects the new distribution of vulnerabilities among the entities and the means to cope with them.