Paper details

Paper authors	Ilan Kelman
In panel on	Resilience: Blurring the Humanitarian and Development Boundary
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Efforts to better connect development and humanitarian work are rife with jargon and assumptions which are not always supported by scientific studies. This paper examines several linked examples, starting with definitions and understandings of resilience and transformation, especially in the context of translating them linguistically and culturally as well as their operational value. This baseline leads to a deeper understanding of how to challenge some of the presumptive rhetoric across the development-humanitarian spectrum, such as climate change and urbanisation each bringing more or new challenges. The consequence is that both development endeavours and humanitarian work arise from similar fundamental root causes. These causal factors are not necessarily fully acknowledged in many of the approaches taken, especially via assumptions that complexity in these situations is unusual or increasing and that resilience and transformation are solutions to the identified challenges.

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