International patterns of territorial resilience

When a community recovers its resilience, how does it transform its relationship with the territory it inhabits?

Editorial: Diputació de Barcelona, 2023 (115 pp.)

Oscar Gussinyer and Erika Zárate are the authors of "The international patterns of territorial resilience: an approach to the province of Barcelona", a publication that explores the concept of resilience and its local application, bringing a renewed view on the ability of territories to face changes and crises. The cases of study of the publication are based on territories with a population similar to that of the province of Barcelona, all of them sharing common characteristics, but with the experience acquired in the resilient management of their own challenges. Most of these territories, as is the case with many regions where indigenous communities still live, have developed a unique ability to maintain resilience to changes, which is based on a deep connection with their natural and social environments.

According to Johan Rockström, resilience is not only to resist crises, but also to adapt and regenerate social, economic and ecological systems in front of them. This capacity is inherent in evergreen societies, such as indigenous cultures, who have known to remain resilient over time. Instead, culture built in the logic of globalization has often disconnected these resilience capabilities, which our precolonization cultures had grown for millennia. Through this publication, authors want to highlight that understanding the resilience patterns of communities around the world can be the key to regaining our inherent resilience and, at the same time, opening the way for the decolonization of our society. Thus the change to a regenerative and resilient model is not only possible, but essential to regain an authentic connection with nature and ourselves.

Authorship:

Òscar Gussinyer, Resilience Earth SCCL

Erika Zárate, Resilience Earth SCCL

Collaboration:

Lorenzo Chelleri, Urban Resilience Research Network (URNet)

Iolanda Fresnillo, European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad)