Is resilience socially constructed? Empirical evidence from Fiji, Ghana, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to better understand the various individual and household factors that influence resilience, that is, people's ability to respond adequately to shocks and stressors. One of our hypotheses is that resilience does not simply reflect the expected effects of quantifiable factors such as level of assets, or even less quantifiable social processes such as people's experience, but is also determined by more subjective dimensions related to people's perceptions of their ability to cope, adapt or transform in the face of adverse events. Data collected over two years in Fiji, Ghana, Sri Lanka and Vietnam confirms the importance of wealth in the recovery process of households affected by shocks and stressors.