This study investigates the role of resilience in women coping with the life transition of divorce. Five women were interviewed and an in-depth qualitative analysis undertaken, in order to explore the subjective experience of resilience during the period of separation and divorce, and its effect on post-divorce adjustment. In addition, the usefulness of formal divorce support groups to enhance resilience was examined. It was found that the most important aspects of resilience as reported by the women were social support; spirituality; personality traits such as optimism, courage and resourcefulness; an orientation toward the future; and competence/mastery of one's environment (including mastery of one's thoughts and emotions). It appeared that resilience facilitated adjustment in several ways; notably in providing a sense of purpose, control and competence resulting in an experience of personal growth. All of the women felt that they had developed a sense of their own identity and greater self-determination through the process of divorce. Support groups might be potentially effective in providing assistance in dealing with emotional issues such as anger and forgiveness; with skills development such as emotion regulation and cognitive techniques like reframing; as well as practical and informational support. Such groups might also provide a temporary community of social support where divorced women can interact with other people who are experiencing the same things. The study illuminated the subjective, often unique experience of separation and divorce; this emphasises the challenge for divorce groups to offer support which addresses this uniqueness. / Psychology / D.Litt. (Psychology)

This qualitative study illustrates that a narrative approach to pastoral therapy can guide collaborative co-authoring of alternative ways of living after trauma. The research emanates from postmodern epistemology and related discourses of social construction and post-structuralism, as well as a contextual approach to practical theology. The narrative practices of enrolling people in their own knowledges, of creating communities of concern, of honouring people, of celebration and joy, and of co-authoring alternative histories are illustrated through descriptions of how narrative maps guided one-to-one pastoral therapy as well as group work with people who have experienced trauma. The concept "resilience" is deconstructed so as to be understood as those personal actions which do not conform to pathologising predictions of the effects of trauma. / Hierdie kwalitatiewe studie illustreer dat 'n narratiewe benadering tot pastorale terapie die ko-konstruksie van alternatiewe leefwyses na trauma kan fasiliteer. Die navorsing spruit voort uit 'n postmoderne epistemologie en die verwante diskoerse van sosiale konstruksie en post-strukturalisme, asook 'n kontekstuele benadering tot praktiese teologie. Die narratiewe praktyke van ontginning van mense se kennis en vaardighede, van die skepping van gemeenskappe van sorg, van vreugde en waardering, en van die mede-skryf aan alternatiewe stories word geillustreer. Dit word gedoen deur beskrywings van die wyse waarop narratiewe kaarte individuele sowel as groepsterapie met getraumatiseerde persone kan begelei. Die konsep "weerstandsvermoee" ("resilience') word gedekonstrueer sodat dit verstaan word as daardie persoonlike ervarings wat patologiserende voorspellings oor getraumatiseerde persone weerspreek. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Practical Theology, with specialisation in Pastoral Therapy)

This thesis considers whether the concept of resilience is applicable to people ageing with dementia; and, if so, what the implications are for social work practice. It begins with an exploration of the literature on dementia, resilience and social work. Using a symbolic interactionist approach it then details how the interactions of people with dementia and their social workers can potentially influence the realisation of resilience in practice. I collected data over a two year period. During this period six dyads comprising a person with dementia and social worker provided rich verbal accounts of their respective experiences. Using narrative analysis the stories of each person with dementia were explored to reveal threats to identity and possible resilience strategies. A resilience lens was applied to the verbal accounts of social workers in order to reveal opportunities and challenges to using resilience in practice. The findings indicate that identity continues to be of importance to people who are ageing with dementia. The preservation of identity could therefore be re-framed as the outcome of a resilience process. Each person could potentially acquire resources over their life which could help to mitigate threats to identity. This is referred to as the resilience reserve. This thesis details the potential domains of such a reserve. Further, it contains details of possible resilience strategies that a person with dementia might employ within stories of self. These strategies are placed within the context of protective and vulnerability factors in order that a resilience framework can emerge. This thesis argues for a re-framing of theories of what social work is. This, combined with a definition of resilience, and the development of a resilience practice framework could promote and realise the resilience of the person ageing with dementia.

The study purposes were to identify changes in resilience, satisfaction with life (SWL), depression, spirituality, and functional independence (FI) and to examine the relationship between these variables, during the inpatient rehabilitation for a spinal cord injury (SCI). The sample included 42 individuals with a SCI, 33 males and 9 females, who were inpatients with a mean stay of 52 days (SD = 15.78). A repeated measures design was employed with questionnaires completed at three times during rehabilitation. Results indicated that there were significant changes in depression, satisfaction with life, spirituality, and FI during inpatient rehabilitation. Findings also indicated significant correlations between resilience, SWL, spirituality, and depression. Future studies developing interventions, and examining factors that predict resilience could help build resilience and may improve rehabilitation outcomes.

Residents of informal settlements (slums) are vulnerable to various disturbances; e.g. diseases spreading and fluctuations in food prices and local access to credits. The lack of credits derives from the continuous outflow of money from communities. This study examines a financial innovation called Sarafu-credits (SC) implemented in Kenyan informal settlements by the organization Grassroots Economics (GE). SC is a community currency (CC), more particularly vouchers only used within a network of micro-businesses, which aim to complement scarcity of conventional money. In addition, GE have initiated community activities, e.g. tree planting, trash collection, food gardens and cultural events, where residents can be paid in SC to improve the community socially and environmentally. This study examines the design and practice of SC, and the activities, using mainly semi-structured interviews with SC-network-members and GE key persons, to understand how a CC can contribute to sustainable livelihood. The concepts specified and general resilience are used to understand the links between SC and the various social-ecological disturbances facing slum-dwellers. The results suggest that SC-members who are actively trading with SC are able to increase their sales, savings and access to basic goods and services thanks to SC. The results also suggest the networks and community activities are strengthening social contacts in the neighbourhood, and constitute examples of how a CC can help finance management of local environmental problems, where SC paid for community services also support local trade. The identified challenges are related to local leadership, where trust, communication and consistency of rules are lacking. In one of the networks, the confidence in the usefulness of the currency is lacking, due to these challenges. GE have experimented with different designs where one successful innovation is the ability to exchange SC to conventional money at certain occasions, which seem to strengthen the confidence in SC.

Small-scale fishing communities along Cambodia’s coast have relied on marine resources as a mainstay of their livelihood for decades. However, in the last ten to fifteen years, a confluence of shocks such as increased fishing pressure, the rapid rise of commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Thailand, illegal, underreported and unregulated fishing, climate change and, more recently, sand mining, have contributed to a progressive decline in catch. Such challenges demand that fishers harness social traits of adaptability, responsiveness, persistence, planning, inter alia. In other words, there is a need for fishers and their households to demonstrate resilience in the face of such challenges. Though a contested term, scholars working within human-environment relations have adopted the concept of social-ecological resilience, acknowledging that the social aspects of resilience have been relatively under-addressed. Relatedly, studies on fishers and fishing communities have shown the important contribution fishing plays in fulfilling social and psychological needs, i.e. wellbeing, and how fishing is more than ‘just’ a livelihood. While evidence for this connection between fishing and wellbeing has been shown across different regions, the nature of this relationship is not as clear for coastal communities in Cambodia. Meanwhile, Cambodia has exhibited rapid economic growth (and foreign direct investment) over the past decade. Part of this has been through the creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) across the country. The creation of the SEZs and thus, the resultant labour demand has catalyzed migration of Cambodians to secondary cities and to the capital, Phnom Penh. Unlike other parts of the country, the experience of the lives of people on the move from the coastal regions of Cambodia remains less understood. Through qualitative work done among three coastal fishing villages in Koh Kong province in southwest Cambodia, I aim to contribute to a better understanding of the social dimensions of resilience by using a multidimensional (material, subjective, and relational) social wellbeing framework to not only better understand how migration affects the wellbeing of those who leave and those who stay, but also the implications on fishing as ‘a way of life’. My research focuses on understanding the role fishing plays, and the degree to which it impacts the wellbeing of fishers and their households in coastal Cambodia, in the context of migration. My empirical findings problematize the notion that fishing as a way of life supplants other dimensions (e.g. material/income) as observed elsewhere by considering outmigration of villagers from the fishing village. I find that the draw of alternative economic opportunities outside the coastal village has resulted in shifting values and opinions towards fishing as a livelihood particularly by younger villagers and has catalyzed their out migration. As a livelihood strategy, migration plays a crucial role in supplementing income from fishing and, in some cases, forms a critical lifeline for the poorest households. I also show how life in the coastal fishing village is filled with trade-offs and difficult choices people must navigate and negotiate, including tensions between various aspects within subjective dimensions of wellbeing. My thesis reveals the important, and sometimes dominant, influence of subjective and psycho-social factors on coastal villagers’ resilience and how this changes the way some view fishing itself. As such this research shows that adopting a social wellbeing lens can not only result in a better understanding of the impact of migration on coastal fishing communities in Cambodia but also broaden understanding of social resilience, for villagers and migrants who are facing a sea of environmental and economic change.

No description available.

Economic resilience has recently enjoyed increased popularity in academic discourse, especially after the 2008 Global Crisis played havoc across the globe, but is as of now still in its infancy: A commonly agreed upon definition is yet to be found, and papers devoted to this concept are still rather scarce. It is commonly known that the manufacturing industries in European economies have generally been in decline for decades, and that they have primarily been replaced by the services sector. It has however been argued in the past that due to relatively high sunk costs, there is increased incentive for investors to keep manufacturing enterprises afloat during difficult times as long as possible, making them less likely to go out of business compared to others, thereby minimizing the initial blow of an economic shock to the respective economy and subsequently foster recovery. These assumptions are being examined in this paper by analysing data from the EU-28 starting at the outbreak of the 2008 crisis until 2015, followed by an investigation of individual economies in greater detail. The results show that more industrialised economies tend to have fared better during the crisis years and also managed to recover sooner.

Divorce is a potentially destructive reality in society. According to the bio-ecological model of Bronfenbrenner, the development of the child takes place within two micro family systems when a family is reconstituted following divorce: the primary micro family system, where the child resides permanently with his/her biological parent who has parental rights and responsibilities, as well as the secondary micro family system of the other biological parent who also has parental rights and responsibilities, where the child visits periodically. Challenges that the child faces in the context of the reconstituted family thus include shared membership of the two micro family systems and the complexity of the mesosystem. Resilience can be defined as a process of the inborn ability to achieve positive outcomes and to adjust successfully despite challenges and adverse living conditions. The purpose of the study was twofold: firstly, to achieve understanding of the way in which middle-adolescents of divorced parents, in moving between the two micro family systems of their reconstituted families, utilise their resilience to develop optimally in spite of a probably dysfunctional relationship between their biological parents at the mesosystemic level and secondly, to contribute to the fields of knowledge on resilience and bio-ecological theory in order to enhance educational psychology praxis with regard to the adaptation of adolescents of divorced parents in reconstituted families. The study was qualitative, and conducted in the interpretive paradigm. A multiple case study with a purposeful sampling of four participants was used. Unstructured narrative conversations were conducted, which included a resilience-based therapeutic intervention to facilitate sensitisation regarding personal strengths and assets in accordance with the assetbased approach. The format of the data description and analysis was defined by the narrative way of working. The participants’ utilisation of resilience qualities was evaluated in accordance with a definition of resilience which had been newly constructed by means of a synthesis of the bio-ecological model, positive psychology and the focuses of the first three waves of resilience research. The findings of the study indicated that the way in which middle-adolescents utilise their resilience depends on a therapeutic process (a personal, controlled process) as well as the nature of the mesosystem in their developmental context (a factor that can only be controlled by the divorced biological parents). In respect of a therapeutic process, the utilisation of the middle-adolescents’ resilience depends on their emotional security to make conscious choices to mobilise their resilience and consequently change their behaviour in order to cope effectively with difficult family circumstances in both their micro-family systems. In respect of the nature of the mesosystem, the utilisation of the middle-adolescents’ resilience depends on the effectiveness of the relationship between their divorced biological parents at the mesosystemic level. The utilisation of resilience per se is apparently dependent on some consistent systemic foundation in the developmental context of the child, which is, in the case of divorce, the mesosystem. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

This study aims at assessing the implementation of the international tool for disaster risk management Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015. The implementation is assessed in terms of risk management at the level of vulnerable informal settlements in hazard-prone areas on the slopes of Guatemala City. The view of resilience which is used in the framework is discussed and how this relates to risk management in general. It is argued that the framework is based on an engineering resilience view. The aspect of resilience in vulnerable areas is considered, introducing a second view of resilience, the socio-ecological. A related theme that is brought into the analysis is that of power relations. The study finds that Guatemalan policy and the Guatemalan risk management system have implemented the policies of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015. Despite this it has not benefitted the inhabitants of the informal settlements in hazard-prone areas. There are some obstacles in order to make risk management accessible to the informal settlements. There is reluctance on the municipal level to implement the national, Hyogo-influenced, risk management and to recognize and empower the communities in the informal settlements, which hinders the development of an efficient resilience. The study concludes that for an international tool for risk management to be efficient, it needs to be clearer in its definitions, and more easily applicable through implementation tools. The inherent conclusion of this is that it would be possible for an international tool like the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015 to be efficient, since there is bureaucratic power supporting it. This power could override local obstacles like political interests. Also, the study concludes that people in informal settlements are resilient to a certain extent, but need to be acknowledged, empowered and cooperated with. / El objetivo de este estudio es evaluar la implementación de la herramienta internacional para la gestión de riesgos de desastres la cual es el Marco de Acción de Hyogo 2005-2015. La implementación es evaluada en términos de gestión de riesgo al nivel de viviendas informales y vulnerables en lugares precarios en las pendientes de la Ciudad de Guatemala. Se analiza el punto de vista sobre resiliencia que es usado en el marco de acción y de qué manera este se relaciona con gestión de riesgo en general. Se argumenta que el marco de acción se basa en el punto de vista de resiliencia de ingeniería. A la vez se considera el aspecto de resiliencia en las areas de viviendas informales, introduciendo la resiliencia socio-ecológica. Un tema relacionado con el análisis son las relaciones de poder. El estudio encuentra que las políticas y que el sistema de gestión de riesgo de desastres guatemalteca han implementado las políticas del Marco de Acción de Hyogo 2005-2015. A pesar de esto el marco de acción no ha beneficiado a los habitantes de las viviendas informales en areas precarias. Hay ciertos obstáculos para que la gestión de riesgo sea accesible en las viviendas informales. Hay cierta resistencia a nivel municipal hacia implementar la gestión de riesgo nacional, influenciada por el Marco de Hyogo, y reconocer y autorizar a las comunidades en las viviendas informales, lo cual dificulta el desarrollo eficiente de resiliencia. El estudio concluye que para que una herramienta internacional de gestión de riesgo sea eficiente, necesita clarificar sus definiciones y ser más fácil de aplicar proponiendo herramientas de implementación. La conclusión inherente es que le sería posible a una herramienta internacional como el Marco de Acción de Hyogo 2005-2015 ser eficiente, ya que tiene poder burocrático apoyándolo. Este poder podría sobrepasar obstáculos locales como intereses políticos. Finalmente el estudio concluye que personas que viven en viviendas informales son resilientes hasta cierto punto, pero necesitan ser reconocidas, autorizadas y que se coopere con ellas.