IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v74y2012i3p416-424.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Resilience from the point of view of older people: ‘There's still life beyond a funny knee’

Author

Listed:
  • Wiles, Janine L.
  • Wild, Kirsty
  • Kerse, Ngaire
  • Allen, Ruth E.S.

Abstract

Resilience is a concept of growing interest in relation to older people and within the context of population ageing. In this paper we explore older people's understandings and experiences of resilience, drawing on interviews and participant-led focus groups with 121 older people living in two case-study communities in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Close reading of extended conversations about what characterises resilience, such as positive attitude, counting blessings or keeping busy, reveal how all of these apparently internal or personal characteristics are deeply embedded in social and physical contexts. We argue that resilience should be seen as a contextualised process which can be both individual and environmental. Older people's experiences highlight the need to consider the effectiveness of environmental community resources and social–political structures such as state-funded service availability, as well as the personal characteristics that are usually focused on when considering resilience in old age. We also argue that it is important to consider different aspects of resilience, so that a person or group might face constraints in one area, such as physical or economic wellbeing, but be strong in other areas such as social relationships or mobility. Resilience can mean acknowledging and incorporating ‘vulnerability’ and balancing wellbeing across a range of areas. Thus even those living with significant illness or hardship can be understood to be ageing well and indeed to be resilient. Far from using resilience as a narrow measure against which to succeed or fail, resilience is a useful concept framing how ageing well can incorporate multidimensional pathways including both vulnerability and flourishing. We must pay adequate attention to the broader physical and social contexts and scales that underpin – or undermine – individual resilience.

Suggested Citation

  • Wiles, Janine L. & Wild, Kirsty & Kerse, Ngaire & Allen, Ruth E.S., 2012. "Resilience from the point of view of older people: ‘There's still life beyond a funny knee’," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 416-424.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:74:y:2012:i:3:p:416-424
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.11.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953611007155
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.11.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lino Briguglio & Gordon Cordina & Nadia Farrugia & Stephanie Vella, 2009. "Economic Vulnerability and Resilience: Concepts and Measurements," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 229-247.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rishworth, Andrea & Elliott, Susan J., 2019. "Global environmental change in an aging world: The role of space, place and scale," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 227(C), pages 128-136.
    2. Torrejón, María-José & Martin-Matthews, Anne, 2022. "A qualitative approach to bridging and bonding social capital: Experiences of a cohort of Chilean older people," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    3. Morris, Stephanie & Guell, Cornelia & Pollard, Tessa M., 2019. "Group walking as a “lifeline”: Understanding the place of outdoor walking groups in women's lives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Wiles, Janine & Miskelly, Philippa & Stewart, Oneroa & Kerse, Ngaire & Rolleston, Anna & Gott, Merryn, 2019. "Challenged but not threatened: Managing health in advanced age," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 227(C), pages 104-110.
    5. Danan Gu & Qiushi Feng, 2018. "Psychological Resilience of Chinese Centenarians and Its Associations With Survival and Health: A Fuzzy Set Analysis," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(5), pages 880-889.
    6. Karol Konaszewski & Małgorzata Niesiobędzka & Janusz Surzykiewicz, 2020. "Validation of the Polish version of the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS)," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-16, August.
    7. Pearson, Amber L. & Pearce, Jamie & Kingham, Simon, 2013. "Deprived yet healthy: Neighbourhood-level resilience in New Zealand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 238-245.
    8. Wiles, Janine L. & Rolleston, Anna & Pillai, Avinesh & Broad, Joanna & Teh, Ruth & Gott, Merryn & Kerse, Ngaire, 2017. "Attachment to place in advanced age: A study of the LiLACS NZ cohort," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 27-37.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Freshwater, David, 2014. "Vulnerability and Resilience: Two Dimensions of Rurality," Staff Papers 174103, University of Kentucky, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    2. A D Adom, 2016. "Resilience of developing countries to shocks: Case study of WAEMU countries with SUR and VAR Approaches," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 21(2), pages 105-138, September.
    3. Zouhair Aït Benhamou & Lesly Cassin, 2018. "The effects of migration and remittances on development and capital in Caribbean Small Island Developing States," EconomiX Working Papers 2018-41, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    4. Xinyu Zhang & Congying Tian, 2024. "Measurement and Influencing Factors of Regional Economic Resilience in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-21, April.
    5. Edwina E. Pereira & Albert E. Steenge, 2022. "Vulnerability and Resilience in the Caribbean Island States; the Role of Connectivity," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 515-540, September.
    6. Giulio Cainelli & Roberto Ganau & Marco Modica, 2019. "Does related variety affect regional resilience? New evidence from Italy," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 62(3), pages 657-680, June.
    7. Paolo Rizzi & Paola Graziano & Antonio Dallara, 2018. "A capacity approach to territorial resilience: the case of European regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 60(2), pages 285-328, March.
    8. Hoang, Dung Phuong & Chu, Lan Khanh & To, Trung Thanh, 2023. "How do economic policy uncertainty, geopolitical risk, and natural resources rents affect economic complexity? Evidence from advanced and emerging market economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).
    9. Tauisi Taupo & Ilan Noy, 2017. "At the Very Edge of a Storm: The Impact of a Distant Cyclone on Atoll Islands," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 143-166, July.
    10. Gheorghe ZAMAN & Valentina VASILE, 2014. "Conceptual framework of economic resilience and vulnerability,at national and regional levels," Romanian Journal of Economics, Institute of National Economy, vol. 39(2(48)), pages 5-18, December.
    11. Inayat Ullah Mangla, 2011. "Reconstructing the Performance of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Another Paradigm," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 16(Special E), pages 30-70, September.
    12. Suat Tuysuz & Tüzin Baycan & Fatih Altuğ, 2022. "Economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in Turkey: analysis of vulnerability and resilience of regions and diversely affected economic sectors," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 1133-1158, October.
    13. Unver, Mustafa & Dogru, Bulent, 2015. "The Determinants of Economic Fragility: Case of the Fragile Five Countries," MPRA Paper 68734, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2015.
    14. Stefan Kienberger & Thomas Blaschke & Rukhe Zaidi, 2013. "A framework for spatio-temporal scales and concepts from different disciplines: the ‘vulnerability cube’," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 68(3), pages 1343-1369, September.
    15. Naudé, Wim & Amorós, José Ernesto & Cristi, Oscar, 2013. ""Romanticizing Penniless Entrepreneurs?" The Relationship between Start-Ups and Human Wellbeing across Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 7547, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Songtao He & Shuigen Yang & Amar Razzaq & Sahar Erfanian & Azhar Abbas, 2023. "Mechanism and Impact of Digital Economy on Urban Economic Resilience under the Carbon Emission Scenarios: Evidence from China’s Urban Development," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-20, March.
    17. Huimin Liu & Yupeng Shi & Xuze Yang & Wentao Zhang, 2023. "The Role of Business Environment and Digital Government in Mitigating Supply Chain Vulnerability—Evidence from the COVID-19 Shock," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-15, January.
    18. Ifrim, Mihaela & Lazorec, Maria & Pintilescu, Carmen, 2022. "Assessing the economic resilience in central and eastern EU countries. A multidimensional approach," MPRA Paper 117912, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Arouri, Mohamed & Nguyen, Cuong & Youssef, Adel Ben, 2015. "Natural Disasters, Household Welfare, and Resilience: Evidence from Rural Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 59-77.
    20. Roberto Cardinale, 2022. "State-Owned Enterprises’ Reforms and their Implications for the Resilience and Vulnerability of the Chinese Economy: Evidence from the Banking, Energy and Telecom Sectors," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 489-514, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:74:y:2012:i:3:p:416-424. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.