Main description:

This book offers new insight into how individuals utilize resilience in the face of structural and social injustice.

By drawing on qualitative research methods to foreground the voices of Holocaust survivors and Latinx immigrants to the United States, Critical Resilience and Thriving in Response to Systematic Oppression illustrates the role of cultural values, spirituality, and perseverance in the face of severe institutionalized oppression. Using this to extend current understandings of resilience, the text posits critical resilience as a response to embedded social inequalities and goes on to offer a nuanced reconceptualization of overcoming such hardship, not only as overcoming adversity but as recognizing strengths despite ongoing injustice. It synthesizes feminist and critical theories to elaborate on the framework of critical resilience and thriving.

Highlighting the importance of qualitative research on the strengths and resources of oppressed groups, this volume will be of interest to students, scholars, and researchers with an interest in trauma studies, qualitative methods, and personal development, as well as in mental health research.

Contents:

1. Critical Resilience and Thriving: Introduction to the Concepts 2. Foundations of Our Work with Critical Resilience and Thriving 3. Adversities: Scope of What Must Be Overcome 4. Examples of Critical Resilience and Critical Thriving 5. "To me, it's just part of my life...": Understanding Critical Resilience through an International, Historical Atrocity 6. Prevention Work: Putting Research into Practice and Practice into Research 7. Critical Resilience and Thriving in Modern Times: Lessons Learned and Moving Forward