Resilient communities? Experiences of risk and resilience in a time of austerity

The recent floods in the UK underlined the importance of community resilience, however we know little about the extent to which people are prepared for different emergencies and often their resilience (or lack of) is only revealed post-event. This paper draws on empirical evidence from a case study of Swansea, South Wales, which explored everyday experiences and understandings of resilience and risk, and considers how the broader context of austerity shapes community resilience to disasters and crisis. It suggests that austerity measures function to undermine and dismantle collective institutions of social protection, and to limit the capacity of different government departments to tackle key risks, as well as contributing to the proliferation of risks in people’s everyday lives. In this sense, austerity can be seen to undermine resilience whilst also contributing to increasing vulnerability. At the same time, participants’ accounts outline some of the difficulties faced in engaging the public in thinking about and preparing for different kinds of risk. It is suggested that there is a need to address these engagement issues as well as to acknowledge the relationship between community resilience and broader questions of social, economic and environmental security.