11.3.1 Creating “Vagueness”
In this section, I suggest to go over the various characteristics of resilience depicted at the UN to highlight the relevance of such a concept in international organizations. According to the analyses, five characteristics support the idea of resilience being a vague concept. I describe the forms resilience takes and illustrate the way the UN staff, Member states and Civil society members interpret and translate the concept.
First, I propose to associate
resilience with the term
boundary object [
16]. In line with Brand and Jax’s argument [
17], who suggest the use of
resilience as a facilitator within the field of science and technology,
resilience facilitates communication across disciplinary borders. However, while easing communication,
boundary objects also allow divergent meanings among the parties without it being necessarily openly recognized. Transposed to the UN context,
resilience is a
boundary object, which ties to tie two main disparities. On the one hand, it bridges the humanitarian and development divide among agencies enabling UNISDR to link both mandates [
18] because both use it. On the other, the concept gives governments, UNISDR and Civil society the possibility to agree on common ground during negotiations.
[Resilience] is one of these empty concepts really. It’s whatever you want it to make it. [...] It’s just a word. You can define and apply it in different ways. [...] Same as sustainability. Those big words they are kind of empty vessels and you put in them what [you want]. (Katherine, Women’s Group member, 8.2.2016).
Second
resilience participates in the constructive ambiguity
game that is often times played among governments. This concept is similar to the abovementioned
boundary object, or that of
flexible language [
19], but draws its roots from a different literature, that of international relations. In other words, ambiguity leads to greater leeway in implementation, because states end up circumventing obligations under other agreements and improve their negotiating positions in other ongoing processes [
20], in [
21].
Resilience is thus made ambiguous.
We not all have the same recipe for resilience. Each country has its own capacity. There’s not one formula. It’s such a broad concept. (USA representative, 13.12.2016).
Third,
resilience can be seen as a snake biting its tail. By analyzing the Hyogo Framework for Action text (HFA),
resilience appears on many occasions and is understood as equivalent to “building a culture of safety” or even “a culture of disaster prevention”. According to UNISDR, addressing “disaster risks” allows in turn “to manage and to reduce” them. Governments are thus encouraged to instill a set of means to stimulate a “culture of disaster resilience” and attain these by “developing and strengthening institutions”, “enhancing governance for disaster risk reduction”. Member states also need to use “innovation”, “education and knowledge” more specifically knowledge pertaining to “hazards and the physical, social, economics and environmental vulnerabilities to disasters” by “promoting the engagement of media and food security” and ensuring that all “new hospitals are built with a level of resilience”. Implementing these means fills the promise of a resilient outcome. Yet
resilience also seems to be a means in itself. It is stated “disasters can be substantially reduced if people are informed and motivated towards a culture of disaster prevention and resilience”. For UNISDR, the goal (reduce disasters) is reached providing there is
resilience. While simultaneously acting as a mean, a goal and an outcome,
resilience is hardly dissociable.
Fourth, resilience never appears as a stand-alone concept. It is associated with various words and tied to major concepts used at the UN in contexts of natural disasters. In the HFA, for example, we encounter “disaster resilience”, “build a culture of safety and resilience”, “culture of disaster prevention and resilience”, “building resilience”. In the Sendai Framework (SF), we come across “educational resilience of persons”, “to promote a culture of disaster prevention, resilience and responsible citizenship”, “economic, social, health and environmental resilience”, “disaster risk resilience”, “ensure resilience to shocks” and many more. In a context where resilience can at any time be juxtaposed to other concepts, it threatens the very definition and thus endorses vagueness.
Fifth,
resilience contains within itself an irrevocable paradox; on the one hand
resilience can only be attained by being creative [
22] and on the other, UNISDR provides a framework. By framing and giving guidelines, we loose the fundamental component inbuilt in the
resilience definition, namely that of creativity. In this sense again, a paradoxical statement leads to misconception and vagueness.
While UNISDR works toward reducing life-loss and limiting destructive outcomes, resilience does not appear as an operationalizable concept. The lack of a clear definition, which makes the concept persistently vague, hinders disaster risk reduction operationalization at headquarters as well as in the field. This having been said, even though these characteristics may be perceived as taking a toll on the worldwide programs, its vagueness seems to have a purpose. Further outlooks give cues on how resilience favors the organization’s legitimacy.
11.3.2 Resilience as a Legitimizing Tool
While resilience’s vagueness appears when confronting views on meaning and definition, other characteristics come to light. Here, I analyze the characteristics that convey a concept as a vector for an organization’s sustainability.
Firstly, by acting as a non-controversial concept,
resilience fosters international consensus within negotiation rooms as delegates express their desire to limit natural disaster impacts. The topic does not trigger salient political debate. On the contrary, in negotiation sessions with Member states,
resilience is hardly discussed. Its definition
4 is a result of UNISDR’s suggestion and not further discussed.
[Resilience] is a word, I would say, yes, we all want to be resilient. It’s like we all want to be sustainable (Marie, UNISDR staff, 9.02.2016).
Secondly, over the years,
resilience turned into the positive outlook of
vulnerability. If vulnerability gives the impression of a defined and static state — difficult to grow out of —
resilience hints communities can work toward becoming stronger and more robust.
Resilience thus turns into a driving force and a goal to reach, by providing a window of opportunity for change.
[Resilience] is good in many ways because it allows us to focus less on vulnerability particularly in women and other gender groups and more on the positive and the capacities and capabilities etc. So it has value for me in that way because it should emphasize the positive and how do you reach that positive stage rather than always focusing on the negative and the poor women. (Ellen, Women’s Group member, 8.02.2016).
Thirdly,
resilience comes across as an up-to-date word.
Resilience, as a relatively new concept, emanates from other trendy concepts used earlier in the UN context. Indeed by taking on
resilience and making it a central concept in a worldwide program, UNISDR jumps on the bandwagon in order to stay tuned with current jargon.
Resilience is a good word just like sustainability is a good word. It’s just like, in these international contexts, you need to change the terminology to keep it current, but really is reflecting many of the same things. So I still say disaster mitigation, but that’s part of disaster risk reduction and that’s part of... you know some people... I would write some documents where I would use some other terms, [such as disaster mitigation and I would be told] NO, [...] it is Disaster Risk Reduction. I was like “excuse me, I’ve been around!” (Cassandra, Women’s Group member, 11.02.2016).
Finally, if we take a closer look into the late 2014, early 2015 negotiations in the run-up to the World Conference,
resilience was hijacked by other international considerations. Even though Civil society strived to talk about disaster resilience and its practical considerations, Member states differed from the objective and raised politically charged issues.
Resilience became of peripheral importance. It is the issues around “common but differentiated responsibility” (CBDR), “people living under the occupation”, “technology transfer” that States inevitably raised causing lengthy negotiations. Nevertheless, it did not stop UNISDR from delivering a framework due to cover a time span of 15 years (2015–2030).