Paradoxes of Resilience: A Review of the World Disasters Report 2016

Resilience', wrote Mark Neocleous in 2012, 'has in the last decade become one of the key political categories of our time. It falls easily from the mouths of politicians, a variety of state departments are funding research into it, urban planners are now obliged to take it into consideration, and academics are falling over themselves to conduct research on it' (Neocleous, 2013: 3). This is one of the few points of agreement in the literature around resilience: it is a big word with big implications. In fact, Neocleous put it relatively mildly.