Unpacking the meaning of resilience: the Tarnagulla community definition comparing to the literature

In 2018, the Tarnagulla Alternative Energy Group in regional Victoria took steps to plan futures for their town and its local community that strengthened resilience to the many challenges in the area including those from climate change. Believing that ‘anticipation strategies work against known problems, while resilient strategies are better against unknown problems’ (IFRC 2012, p.5) the group turned to the RMIT Climate Change Transformations group to unpack the meaning of resilience as it related to the town and community. The purpose was to produce a locally-focused Resilience Action Plan. Despite an international consensus and media propagation of resilience as a silver bullet to address future uncertainties, the concept remains contentious and challenging to implement. This paper considers how the various framings of resilience—the ‘conceptual’ (in literature) and the ‘operational’ (in policy)—relate to the Tarnagulla community’s lived experience and the implications. The comparison allows to unpack a mixture of the complexities in understanding the nature of values, preferences, expectations, capacities, contested knowledge, as well as, the uncertainties. Study findings show that communities are best placed to frame their resilience, collectively and from a ‘systems’ perspective, and that implementing actions, which may require radical change, hinge on a political voice and sustained support from policy makers.