The purpose of this study was to explore resilience processes in Palestinian refugee families living under Israeli occupation for multiple generations. Qualitative methods, critical postcolonial theories, and community-based research approaches were used to examine intergenerational protective practices and to contribute to reconceptualizations of resilience from indigenous perspectives. First, the researcher developed a collaborative partnership with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in a UN refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Then, with the support of this NGO, semistructured group and individual interviews were completed with a total of 30 participants ( N = 30) ranging in age from 18 to 90 years old coming from 5 distinct extended family networks. Using grounded theory situational analysis, the findings were organized in a representation entitled Palestinian Refugee Family Trees of Resilience (PRFTR). These findings explain resilience in terms of three interrelated themes: (a) Muqawama/resistance to military siege and occupation; (b) Awda/return to cultural roots despite historical and ongoing settler colonialism; and (c) Sumoud/perseverance through daily adversities and accumulation of trauma. The study findings shed light on how Palestinian families cultivate positive adaptation across generations and highlight how incorporating community-based perspectives on the historical trauma and violent social conditions of everyday life under occupation may be critical for promoting resilience. Results may be relevant to understanding the transgenerational transmission of trauma and resilience within other displaced communities internationally.
Colonialism and coloniality constitute the backbone of modernity. Colonial structures/systems are predicated on recurring patterns of domination and violence. Decolonial movements are rehumanizing and abolitionist projects guided by Global South peoples' reimagining and reclaiming of what it means to be human. Decolonial praxes therefore require transnational efforts to decenter Whitestream academic institutions as hubs of knowledge production. In light of this, we question the boundaries of what we consider to be research in psychology as we walk in the legacies of struggle and survival-of our grandmothers and grandfathers, and so many ancestors who never used the word "decolonial". Weaving together stories of refusal and community grounded on our work in Palestine and India, we demonstrate how our decolonial strivings require us to continuously rediscover ways of being present, being in struggle, and being human together as we work ''creatively in coalition'' with our communities. Through our stories of accompaniment, and bringing them into conversation with each other, we disrupt violent, colonially-configured borders. In our world-making coalitions and the writing of this article, we turn to a praxis that allows for the revisioning of justice as irresistible and interlinked, ungovernable and in defiance of borders and walls.
Aims: This article aims to reframe resilience for use in community research and action in conditions of adversity marked by increasing natural disasters and by social inequities rooted in the coloniality of power, such as in Chile. Method: We review international resilience literature that explores responses to complex adversities, evaluating three “waves” of resilience research, including (1) “bouncing back,” which frames resilience as protecting functioning; (2) “bouncing forward,” understanding resilience as adaptation; and (3) what we are calling, the “centering at the margins” wave, which explicitly incorporates liberation psychology and decolonial, critical race theories to the study and promotion of resilience. Results: Building off “third wave” thinking, this article attempts to improve the social justice ethics within which research on resilience is completed by introducing a critical community resilience praxis. Conclusions: Critical community resilience praxis can aid the study of resilience by illuminating ways to avoid the reinforcement of social hierarchies and interlocking systems of oppression relevant to the work of disaster risk reduction investigators, psychologists, and differently positioned stakeholders engaged in resilience research and practice in complex settings internationally marked by histories of colonialism, consequences of climate change, and continual social inequities.
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