A Critical Review of Social Resilience Properties and Pathways in Disaster Management

Resilience as a concept is multi-faceted with complex dimensions. In a disaster context, there is lack of consistency in conceptualizing social resilience. This results in ambiguity of its definition, properties, and pathways for assessment. A number of key research gaps exist for critically reviewing social resilience conceptualization, projecting resilience properties in a disaster-development continuum, and delineating a resilience trajectory in a multiple disaster timeline. This review addressed these research gaps by critically reviewing social resilience definitions, properties, and pathways. The review found four variations in social resilience definitions, which recognize the importance of abilities of social systems and processes in disaster phases at different levels. A review of resilience properties and pathways in the disaster resilience literature suggested new resilience properties—“risk-sensitivity” and “regenerative” in the timeline of two consecutive disasters. This review highlights a causal pathway for social resilience to better understand the resilience status in a multi-shock scenario by depicting inherent and adaptive resilience for consecutive disaster scenarios and a historical case study for a resilience trajectory in a multiple disaster timeline. The review findings will assist disaster management policymakers and practitioners to formulate appropriate resilience enhancement strategies within a holistic framework in a multi-disaster timeline.