Considering the practices and demands of ‘resilience’ in the framework of cruel optimism.

Lauren Berlant writes that cruel optimism ‘exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing’, that a society or an individual’s relation to a specific object of desire may be self-destructive or harmful. Is resilience merely a last chance saloon for the maintenance of modes of living that inevitably must fail? Does resilience push the costs of climate change onto communities that can least afford it? Does resilience operate to paper over the cracks rather than to tackle problems at their roots?

Join David Chandler, Professor of International Relations at the University of Westminster, London, UK who will discuss three framings of resilience: building back better, managing equilibrium, and dynamic adaptation.

More about Dr. David Chandler

David Chandler is Professor of International Relations at the University of Westminster, London, UK. He is a leading academic in the field of international policy development and apart from his work with international institutions has written monographs, articles and edited collections on international resilience, including authoring Resilience: the Governance of Complexity (2014) and co-editing The Routledge Handbook of International Resilience (2016).

This event will be available in person and virtual - details to be updated shortly.