| Summary/Abstract |
Resilience has become a central notion in the discourse of international foreign aid and development institutions and actors. Although it was often used metaphorically in political realms, extensive theorization of resilience and its appropriation by hegemonic international actors contributes to its conceptual stabilization. Despite the wealth of literature on resilience, the interrogation of the discursive projections and power plays that underpins the concept when it is applied at the local level have been rarely considered. Julian Reid, for example, demonstrated how colonial discourses—in the American, Canadian and Nordic contexts—projected resilience as a trait that is inherent to indigenous peoples’ being and way of life.Footnote1 The aim here, as he observed, is to dominate indigenous imagination and facilitate colonial and neoliberal intrusions. This was echoed by another study that highlighted how resilience is used as part of the settler-colonial and neoliberal structured attack on the resource rights of indigenous people of Australia.Footnote2 These few critical studies reveal a curious process in which power relations are projected under the guise of building and supporting local resilience. It is therefore vital to empirically and critically examine this process to further understand its implications in different contexts.
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