Re-examining critiques of resilience policy: evidence from Barpak after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal

This paper examines three common critiques of 'resilience': (i) that it is a 'top-down' policy discourse that pays too little regard to local specificities; (ii) that resilience policy represents a neoliberal shift towards the responsibilisation of communities and a retreat of the state from its role in providing protection; and (iii) that the focus on resilience tends to divert attention from the underlying causes of vulnerability. Using data collected after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, the paper argues that these critiques have mixed salience in this context, but that (i) and (iii) in particular point to important problems in how the central government and its international partners have approached enhancing the resilience of communities. While there are benefits to considering resilience at the local level, it is important to recognise the inequalities within communities, how these might be reflected in differential degrees of vulnerability, and how they might be reinforced through resilience-building programmes.