Sustainable resilience? Disaster recovery and the marginalization of sociocultural needs and concerns

Resilience has become the dominant and normative ideology of sustainability more generally, and disaster recovery more specifically. Most studies focus on how to achieve resilient recovery. This is premised on an assumption that resilience meets the needs and concerns of disaster-affected populations and is thereby sustainable. However, this article critically explores to what extent the recovery needs and concerns of disaster-affected households fit neatly within resilience vernacular and analytical frameworks. The research shows that resilience is informed by a reductive understanding of human needs as many socio-cultural needs of disaster-affected people are marginalized from resilience-based recovery. The article suggests that if disaster recovery is to be a normative and sustainable agenda, then resilience alone may be insufficient, and that needs and concerns that do not directly adapt to, reduce or avoid the impacts of hazards, ought to be prioritized in recovery programmes. The article explores these issues by investigating self-build housing processes in a post-disaster setting in Cochabamba city in Bolivia.