We Make It Look Easy: The Concept of Resilience from a Marginalized Perspective

Background and Purpose: Resilience can be defined as positive adaptation despite adversity or one’s ability to bounce back in the face of significant threats to development. While the general consensus on what it means to be resilient has expanded over time, our conceptualizations of the concept continue to be largely understood from a mainstream, homogeneous perspective. Underlying assumptions regarding this perspective are that: a) resilience holds the same meaning for all individuals and groups; and b) marginalized youth possess a sort of “ordinary magic” that they can and should utilize in persevering through historical and contextual constraints. The idea that promoting a perspective of resilience based on the typical behavior of the majority has the potential to do more harm than good for marginalized and disadvantaged groups, such as African Americans, is what drives the current study. Methods: Thus, the current study answers the following questions: 1) What is the lived experience of low-income, African Americans and their personal processes of adversity and positive adaptation from childhood to present? and 2) What localized, structural repertoires regarding resilience emerge from how low-income, African Americans discuss their personal processes of adversity and positive adaptation from childhood to present? This study draws upon Post-structuralism, Ecological Systems Theory, and Intersectionality Theory, as it utilizes a phenomenological design with critical elements to center African Americans and their lived experience with adversity and positive adaptation. Results: Findings identify numerous adversity and positive adaptation themes regarding resilience within the family, community, and individual dimensions. Findings also conclude several interpretive repertoires in which the researcher was able to gauge particular discourses participants pulled from to frame their lived experience with resilience. Conclusions and Implications: Much of social work and its efforts are targeted towards the marginalized, vulnerable, and disadvantaged. Therefore, it is fitting that a contextually- and culturally-driven stance on the concept of resilience would aid social workers and their practices in being more open and inclusive of the experiences of those they aim to serve. As the concept of resilience is ubiquitous to the field of social work and its practices, it is important to understand marginalized perspectives on what it means to overcome adversity and be resilient.