Towards a bridging concept for undesirable resilience in social-ecological systems

[en] Resilience is a cross-disciplinary concept that is relevant for understanding the sustainability of the social and environmental conditions in which we live. Most research normatively focuses on building or strengthening resilience, despite growing recognition of the importance of breaking the resilience of, and thus transforming, unsustainable social-ecological systems. Undesirable resilience (cf. lock-ins, social-ecological traps), however, is not only less explored in the academic literature, but its understanding is also more fragmented across different disciplines. This disparity can inhibit collaboration among researchers exploring interdependent challenges in sustainability sciences. In this article, we propose that the term lock-in may contribute to a common understanding of undesirable resilience across scientific fields.

Research center :

Luxembourg Centre for Socio-Environmental Systems (LCSES)

Disciplines :

Environmental sciences & ecology
Human geography & demography
Sociology & social sciences

Author, co-author :

Dornelles, André Z.

Boyd, Emily

Nunes, Richard J.

Asquith, Mike

Boonstra, Wiebren J.

Delabre, Izabela

Denney, J. Michael

Grimm, Volker

Jentsch, Anke

Nicholas, Kimberly A.

More authors (7 more)

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

Towards a bridging concept for undesirable resilience in social-ecological systems

Publication date :

2020

Journal title :

Global Sustainability

eISSN :

2059-4798

Publisher :

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Gb

Volume :

Pages :

e20

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Focus Area :

Sustainable Development

Additional URL :

https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2059479820000150/type/journal_article

Available on ORBilu :

since 04 June 2025

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