Visibilising the neglected: The emancipatory potential of resilience

Abstract

Abstract The shift of responsibility from the state and public authorities to the individual and the local level is one of the most common critiques of resilience policies. Individuals are portrayed as self-responsible entrepreneurs of their own protection. This article proposes a more nuanced reading of this process by arguing that resilience also entails an emancipatory potential. Drawing on an analysis of the German disaster management system and its structural marginalisation of care-dependent people, the article discusses the potential of resilience to make so far neglected needs visible. This visibilisation is the precondition for the recognition and, subsequently, the societal negotiation of the various needs and resources. Recognition and material redistribution may then be the yardstick for assessing the legitimacy of a shift of responsibilities that rests on the appropriate consideration of power, privileges, and abilities of the respective referent object of responsibility. Taking up the Frankfurt School's tradition of immanent critique, security scholars should not restrict themselves to exercise the necessary critique of problematic resilience policies, but engage in carving out how resilience can contribute to freeing rather than burdening the (precarious) individual.