Beyond the Western lens of resilience

Resilience thinking, as it appears in dominant academic and policy discourses, is largely rooted in Western, modernist and neoliberal paradigms. However, African rural communities have long developed and practised their own ways of navigating adversity, ways that are often unacknowledged within mainstream resilience frameworks. This chapter challenges the imposition of universal resilience narratives by foregrounding local epistemologies and culturally embedded expressions that appear as the equivalent of resilience. Drawing from a qualitative study conducted in Chimanimani District, Zimbabwe, it explores how communities articulate their understanding and responses to disruptions brought by phenomena such as floods, droughts, cyclones and climate extremes, through analogies, idioms and proverbs. The local expressions, deeply embedded in cultural memory and everyday life, serve as powerful tools for communicating collective experience, wisdom and adaptive strategies. Sayings such as ‘a clever bird builds its nest before the rains come’ encapsulate values of foresight and preparedness, while metaphors drawn from nature, like the flexibility of a willow tree, illustrate adaptability and endurance. Such linguistic devices not only reinforce communal resolve but also foster a shared sense of identity and purpose, which are critical to responding effectively to adversity. The chapter argues that these context-specific framings offer valuable insights into how communities anticipate, absorb and recover from shocks and stressors, often without invoking the term ‘resilience’. By recognising and integrating African epistemologies into resilience discourse, we move toward a more inclusive and pluralistic understanding that respects the lived realities and cultural logics of those most affected by climate and disaster risks.