Bouncing back? Recession, resilience and everyday lives

Abstract

This paper critically engages with a recent shift towards an emphasis on ‘resilience’ in policy and academic fields. The paper suggests that this shift is problematic for several reasons: that it supports normative value judgements; that it may overemphasize the ability of people to ‘bounce back’ and undervalue the hidden costs of resilience, especially those with gendered dimensions; and that it may be associated with policy prescriptions that shift responsibility for dealing with crisis away from the public sphere. The empirical illustration for this analysis is a qualitative study of the impact of economic decline in the Sussex town of Newhaven.