Resilience perspectives in sustainability transitions research: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Resilience is traditionally seen as the capability to bounce back to normal from undesired change, while sustainability transitions research seeks to understand how a radical change can be promoted. This may be seen as a puzzle, not least considering the increasingly frequent combination of both sets of concepts in policy and scholarly approaches. In this article we systematically review scientific publications that combine these concepts. The findings highlight that resilience is an emerging analytical lens, owing especially to perspectives developed within socio-ecological resilience thinking. This internalizes “nature” more explicitly into conceptual and empirical work, not least regarding energy systems. Future research may be related to issues like stability and change and capabilities for various forms of change, but also needs to pay attention to trade-offs emerging from assumptions about normative resilience, and undesirable resilience which may exist or emerge in different phases and places in transitions.