Community resilience: a useful concept for declining Icelandic communities?

Abstract

In recent years, resilience has become an increasing focal point of community studies, in particular for settlements in the peripheral north, which face severe socio-economic and demographic challenges. Not all researchers and practitioners were equally excited about the transfer of this concept – deeply rooted in ecology – to the social sciences. Unsurprisingly there is a growing literature that engages critically with community resilience. This reflection takes up some of the main criticism and projects it onto Iceland; a country that can serve as magnifier in the exploration of community resilience for a variety of reasons. The main aim of this reflection is to keep the discussion going about theoretical and analytical insufficiencies within the field of community resilience. Shortcomings of existing definitions, the role of politics and agency as well as the determination of equilibria and the question of an endpoint to resilience are the essential strands of argumentation.