Re-examining critiques of resilience policy : evidence from Barpak after the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal

The concept of ‘resilience’ has been subject to a number of critiques. In this paper, we examine three of the most common: i) that resilience is a ‘top‐down’ policy discourse that pays too little regard to local specificities; ii) that resilience policy represents a neoliberal shift towards the responsibilization of communities and a retreat of the state from its role in providing protection; and iii) that the focus on resilience tends to divert attention away from the underlying social, political, and economic causes of vulnerability. Using data collected in post‐earthquake Nepal from Barpak, the village at the epicenter of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, the District Headquarters, and at the national level in Kathmandu, we argue that these critiques have mixed salience in this particular context, but that the first and third in particular point to important problems in the ways in which the Government of Nepal and its international partners have approached the task of enhancing the resilience of Nepalese communities. We argue that while there are benefits to considering resilience at the community level, it is important to recognise the inequalities within communities, how these might be reflected in differential levels of vulnerability, and how they might be reinforced through resilience building programmes.