Azher Hameed Qamar
Postdoc Fellow COFUND Migration, Diaspora, Citizenship
University of Münster
Resilience is now becoming a popular term in migration studies and policy debates. Particularly in the context of migrants’ integration, it is often seen as a desired ability that helps migrants do well even when things are difficult. This dominant rhetoric frequently conceptualizes resilience as an individual characteristic or ability, overlooking the underlying social and political processes, structural conditions, and institutions that significantly influence migrant experiences. Such technocratic and neoliberal framings of resilience shift the burden of responsibility onto individuals, obscuring the complex, relational, and contextual factors that shape migrants’ lived experiences.
This blog post is based on my research on social resilience and migrants’ lived experiences. I propose to explore social resilience as a concept that is based on the lived experiences of migrants, reconceptualizing it as:
“A social phenomenon marked by the social experiences and practices of vulnerable individuals or groups as they navigate political, economic, cultural, and social (PECS) changes and challenges (Qamar, 2023a).”
Through these experiences, individuals and groups learn to re‑examine their lives within new contexts and develop adaptive and transformational capacities. From a life-course perspective, this is an ongoing process. During the process, migrants’ status, social networks, accessible resources and support, and visibility illuminate how migrants adapt and change in a world where they bear the responsibility to be integrated. This perspective proposes the concept of resilience as a dynamic, socio-political process that develops via everyday interactions and institutional involvement.
Reconceptualizing Resilience Beyond the “Bouncing Back” Paradigm
By and large, accepted definitions of resilience focus on the capacity or ability to “bounce back” from adversity, which highlights coping strategies and recovery following challenging circumstances. This approach addresses key aspects of adaptation; however, it is inadequate, particularly in the context of migration influenced by persistent crises such as climate change, globalization, and socio-political crises. Researchers now argue for a broader conceptualization of resilience, which includes the idea of “bouncing ahead,” referring to the process-oriented resilience through which migrants adapt, (re)learn, (re)examine, and move forward in society (Qamar, 2023a, 2023c).
The shift in perspective means that it is necessary to recognize the diverse social experiences and behaviors in resilience studies. Migrant populations exemplify the dynamic interplay between agency and structure; as individuals and families transition from precarity to stability, their choices, strategies, and adaptations are inextricably linked to the social, political, and cultural contexts in which they live. In this connection, a life‑course perspective offers a valuable analytical lens for examining how lives, identities, and belonging evolve over time, providing a useful approach for understanding these processes. Focusing on resilience, a life‑course perspective has rarely been applied in migration research, yet it offers significant potential for illuminating the temporal and relational dimensions of migrant resilience.
Social Resilience: A Lived‑Experience Perspective
By the end of the twentieth century, resilience research primarily focused on individual characteristics, suggesting that personality characteristics such as self-esteem, temperament, competence, and cognitive abilities influence the ability to withstand adversity. Critics pointed out that such models as “heroic resilience” are narrow and often downplay the crucial role of institutions, social structures, and social actions (Qamar, 2024a).
On the other hand, the concept of social resilience focuses on the ability to withstand crisis and restructuring. This ability is shaped by access to livelihoods, resources, and institutions, all of which exist within evolving socio-political contexts (Adger, 2000; Adger et al., 2002). With this relatively new conceptualization, ‘social resilience’ emerged as the key concept in contemporary resilience research. However, resilience in the context of migration is fundamentally a social, cultural, and political phenomenon shaped by interdependence, institutional arrangements, collective responses, and the dynamic interactions between actors and their socio‑political contexts (Keck & Sakdapolrak, 2013; Obrist et al., 2010; Qamar, 2023a, 2023c). Hence, resilience is understood as a dynamic social process that shapes the abilities to respond, recover, and move forward within specific contexts (Bohle et al., 2009; Dagdeviren & Donoghue, 2019; Qamar, 2023a).
Recent multidisciplinary research has broadened the understanding of resilience, emphasizing how it applies within social, political, and cultural systems. For example, Ungar’s (2012) socio-ecological approach emphasizes how resilience is culturally situated and influenced by the person-environment interactions, complexity, and cultural relativity. This approach acknowledges a spectrum of resilience strategies, particularly within vulnerable groups such as migrants.
Migration, whether voluntary or coerced, represents a significant transition characterized by fractured family connections, financial constraints, language barriers, and the development of new social roles. These interruptions create a “new normal” state for the migrants in which they struggle to adjust, redefine their belonging, and experience personal and social transformation. In this context, social resilience is an evolving process shaped by cultural practices, interpersonal relationships, community values, and institutional supports. It is deeply ingrained in and driven by the political, economic, and cultural contexts that migrants experience.
A lived experience perspective in migration studies is particularly useful for examining the developing process of resilience through continuity, decisive moments, and interdependence. It presents resilience as an inherently social phenomenon that is shaped by the continuous interplay between migrants and the political, economic, cultural, and social contexts of the host country. Migrants’ vulnerability, evident in marginalization, racism, restricted access, and political invisibility, significantly influences the process of resilience.
Conclusion
In the field of migration studies, the concept of social resilience needs to be adequately framed to capture a bottom-up understanding of migrants’ lived experiences. It should be examined as a social construct, giving voice to the participants in the research. Rethinking social with a lived experience approach will help to include the interaction of social, cultural, economic, and political factors in understanding resilience. It will also help to emphasize the importance of community practices, institutional interactions, and the broader environmental context. By recognizing lived experiences as valid empirical data, scholars, policymakers, and practitioners can better understand the migrants’ agency and the complexity of inclusion, belonging, and a meaningful existence in their everyday lives.
References
Adger, W. N. (2000). Social and ecological resilience: are they related? Progress in Human Geography, 24(3), 347–364.
Adger, W. N., Kelly, P. M., Winkels, A., Huy, L. Q., & Locke, C. (2002). Migration, remittances, livelihood trajectories, and social resilience. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 31(4), 358–366.
Bohle, H. G., Etzold, B., & Keck, M. (2009). Resilience as agency. IHDP Update, 2(2009), 8–13.
Dagdeviren, H., & Donoghue, M. (2019). Resilience, agency and coping with hardship: evidence from Europe during the Great Recession. Journal of Social Policy, 48(3), 547–567.
Keck, M., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2013). What is social resilience? Lessons learned and ways forward. Erdkunde, 67(1), 5–19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23595352
Obrist, B., Pfeiffer, C., & Henley, R. (2010). Multi-layered social resilience: A new approach in mitigation research. Progress in Development Studies, 10(4), 283–293.
Qamar, A. H. (2023a). Conceptualizing social resilience in the context of migrants’ lived experiences. Geoforum, 139, 103680.
Qamar, A. H. (2023c). Social dimensions of resilience and climate change: a rapid review of theoretical approaches. Present Environment and Sustainable Development, 17(1), 139-153.
Qamar, A. H. (2024a). Social Resilience: A Critical Synopsis of Existing Definitions. Corvinus Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 15(1).
Ungar, M. (2012). Researching and theorizing resilience across cultures and contexts. Preventive Medicine: An International Journal Devoted to Practice and Theory, 55(5), 387–389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2012.07.021