Youth Resilience and Culture

Book excerpt: Until researchers and theorists account for the complex relationship between resilience and culture, explanations of why some individuals prevail in the face of adversity will remain incomplete. This edited volume addresses this crucial issue by bringing together emerging discussions of the ways in which culture shapes resilience, the theory that informs these various studies, and important considerations for researchers as they continue to investigate resilience. Using research from majority and minority world contexts, ‘Youth Resilience and Culture: Commonalities and Complexities’ highlights that non-stereotypical, critical appreciation of the cultural systems in which youth are embedded, and/or affiliate with, is pivotal to understanding why particular resilience processes matter for particular youth in a particular life-world at a particular point in time. In doing so, this book sensitizes readers to the importance of accounting for the influence of cultural contexts on resilience processes, and to the danger of conceptualising and/or operationalising resilience, culture, and their interplay, simplistically or idealistically. In short, the progressive contents of ‘Youth Resilience and Culture: Commonalities and Complexities’ make it an essential read for resilience-focused scholars, students, academics, and researchers, as well as policy makers, practitioners, and humanitarian workers engaged with high-risk populations.