Alice Koubová

Alice Koubová is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, and Associate Professor and Vice-Dean for Research at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Czech Republic. She has authored books and articles on relational ethics, theory of performativity, identity, and embodied knowledge. In her academic practice, she combines basic and applied research, dramaturgical practice, and cooperation with public institutions. More here.

Social resilience: research across institutions and systems

Resilience is not a predominant term in the Czech public discourse, be it on the level of communities, institutions, organisations, municipalities, regions, or the state. Due to its relative linguistic absence in strategic documents and development plans, it is necessary (and also uniquely possible) to map the most important resilient principles and themes through a phenomenological approach to practice and experience. In my contribution, I will present selected primary outcomes of my research based on in-depth interviews with stakeholders and representatives of different social domains dealing with more or less acute crises or questions of well-being/flourishing. Our goal was to understand the sources of knowledge, paradigmatic shifts, effective measures, approaches to adversities, and systemic interconnections between different layers: psychological health and trauma mitigation, self-defence, care policies, cultural management, investigative journalism, environmental activism, education, human rights, anti-discrimination laws, and hybrid war. I will mainly focus on the emphasis of the respondents on relational ethics that shows the precedence of social (or community, institutional) resilience to individual resilience. This shift also implies the reinterpretation of one's identity, success in life, satisfaction, freedom, or autonomy, together with a specific approach to borders, vulnerability, hardiness, and strength.