The concept of resilience has been crucial in anthropological community studies over the past two decades. While it is a useful analytical tool, it also has its limitations—many studies on resilience focus on a superorganic entity, the society. By immersing in soft, qualitative data and fieldwork experience, presenting individual life paths and decision-making, anthropologists can gain a better local perspective of what resilience is about. The presentation and transmission of individual choices and intersubjective lifeworlds offer valuable insights into areas that systematic research on resilience often overlooks. In this paper, I argue that it is worthwhile to shift the focus from systemic research to emphasizing individual choices, voices, and life stories in anthropological research on resilience. This shift may gradually imbue the concept of resilience with local concepts and practices. The presentation and communication of individual choices and personal experiences shed light on those areas where systematic research on resilience seems to fall short, marking the beginning of the most exciting part of anthropological research.
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Csaba Mészáros (2025) studied this question.
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