Social resilience: ‘Hard’ approaches to understand ‘heart’ issues

The concept of social resilience describes how individuals and communities understand, live with and adapt to environmental and social threats. To understand social resilience, a structured approach of applying quantitative methods allows to identify key factors fostering or impeding social resilience, which is useful and relevant for responding to shocks, such as Covid-19. 

These insights from recent studies in Singapore and Switzerland on social resilience are shared in form of an opinion piece titled 'The Case for Using Hard (Scientific) Approaches to Understand (Heart) Issues' authored by Prof. Renate Schubert, Module Leader of the Measuring, Modelling and Enhancing Social Resilience module at FRS, and Dr Jonas Joerin, Programme Co-Director of FRS. The chapter is part of external page 'Building Community Resilience', a book launched by the Centre for Liveable Cities, Singapore on 1 August.

Key findings from one study in the context of climate change, in the community of Cambridge Road, Singapore, showed that in-person community engagement increased social resilience and strengthened residents' social fabric.

In another study focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore and Switzerland, the research team found that due to the absence of in-person engagement due to social distancing, social cohesion and trust in authorities' decisions emerged as critical factors of social resilience and how individuals manage the pandemic. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the adoption of new digital technologies provided alternative avenues for people to overcome restrictions and maintain social and community resilience.

_{Image Credit: Centre for Liveable Cities}