Description
Resilience is a buzzword in academia, government, and industry to account for the ability to “bounce back” after adverse experience. The communicative theory of resilience has moved conceptualization beyond mere “bounce back” to a theory that requires communication in constituting resilience. This study utilizes ethnographic methods (including participant observation and narrative interviewing) to collect and analyze the narratives of individuals without homes to understand how this group reifies, resists, and extends current resilience theories, as well as how community is utilized to advance resilience concepts. This analysis is presented as a layered account where the author’s experiences as a member of the homeless population are considered and incorporated to create a more contextual and reflexive understanding of the data. This method reveals five themes that extend resilience theorization including: (1) crafting stability in the “new normal;” (2) community-enabled positive outlook and productive action; (3) reifying and resisting homeless identity; (4) constituting trusted networks; and finally (5) reframing capitalist logics. These themes work together to demonstrate the ways that people without homes constitute resilience, but also how communication and community are necessary elements of that constitution. This analysis closes with recommendations for the necessity of compassionate communication within organizational structures, and highlights the need for the voices of this community to be included when conceptualizing and enacting solutions to living without a home.
