Research Project

Resilience Factors in a diachronic and intercultural perspective

What makes people resilient?

Summary

At all times people suffered from illness, war, expulsion, flight and death. An interdisciplinary research project from archaeology, life sciences and psychology investigates which factors helped them to become resilient to these stress situations.

Since the beginning of mankind, humans have been exposed to situations of stress and crises. These include, for example, profound changes in the personal environment such as illness or death, social changes such as political, social or economic crises, but also ecological changes such as natural catastrophes or climate changes. Often such crises have led to decline and collapse but in many cases individuals, communities or even societies have proved to be resilient to such crises and threats or they were able to deal with these challenges. 

Today various scientific disciplines from life and social sciences to historical and archaeological disciplines examine which factors enable individuals, smaller or larger collectives to cope with stressful situations.  The aim of “Resilience Factors in a diachronic and intercultural perspective” is to bring these disciplines together. The project investigates how current concepts of life and social sciences can be transferred to historical disciplines, and - vice versa - how they can benefit from long-term diachronic and cross-cultural perspectives. In synchronic and diachronic as well as in intercultural and intracultural comparisons, specific stress situations are analysed in order to examine whether and to what extent similar factors were relevant for individuals and collectives. Furthermore the project offers insights in cultural and chronological occurrence of resilience factors. This innovative approach will not only enrich current debates in human, economic and social sciences with a new perspective, but will also contribute to the controversial ongoing discussion of human behavioural universals. In addition to the identification of specific resilience factors, the project also highlights cultural differences, questioning research traditions and paradigms, but also evaluating new interdisciplinary approaches.

Coordinated by the LEIZA (former RGZM) and the Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (LIR) the collaborative network combines following expertise:  Social Psychology Department at Goethe University with the Center for Leadership and Behavior in Organizations, Department of Social and Legal Psychology, Institute of Ancient Studies  with the Institutes of Classical Archaeology and Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology all located at Johannes Gutenberg University  Mainz, Archaeology Department at Goethe University,  Romano-Germanic  Commission of the German Archaeological Institute and Technische Universität Darmstadt with its Department of  Architecture,  Classical Archaeology.

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Contact

Dr. Louise Rokohl
+49 0 6131 8885-0
Kontakt

Team

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Alexandra W. Busch
Prof. Dr. Klaus Lieb
Manpreet Blessin
Prof. Dr. Rolf van Dick
Luise Erfurth
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Heide Frielinghaus
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser
Prof. Dr. Detlef Gronenborn
Dr. Kerstin Hofmann
Prof. Dr. Roland Imhoff
Prof. Dr. Fleur Kemmers
Prof. Dr. Franziska Lang
Sophie Lehmann
Dr. Carin Molenaar
Paul Pasieka
Dr. Stefan Schreiber

Project Period

06.2018 - 11.2022
Finished

Support

Leibniz Collaborative Excellence # K83/2017

Editions

  • M. Hinz – M. Renger – S. Schreiber – C. Heitz (Hrsg.), Theorizing Resilience & Vulnerability in Ancient Studies (TRAVAS): Blog resulting from the International Workshop 19.–20.1.2021. 2021. URL: http://resilience2020.archaeological.science/.

Essays

  • Y. Ecker – R. Imhoff – S. Schreiber – A. W. Busch From Social Traditions to Personalized Routines: Maintenance Goals as a Resilience Factor. Social Psychological and Personality Science, in Review.
  • C. Molenaar – M. Blessin – L. Erfurth – R. Imhoff, Were we stressed or was it just me – and does it even matter? Efforts to disentangle individual and collective resilience within real and imagined stressors. British Journal of Social Psychology 61, 2022, 167–191. DOI: doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12475.
  • N. Chub, Kenotaph als eine Strategie der Verlustbewältigung bei uneindeutigem Verlust. In: E. Kaiser – M. Meyer – S. Scharl – S. Suhrbier (Hrsg.), Wissenschichten. Festschrift für Wolfram Schier zu seinem 65. Geburtstag. Internationale Archäologie – Studia honoraria 41 (Rahden/Westf.: Leidorf 2022) 17–27.
  • S. Schreiber, Resilienz als Resonanzfähigkeit. Ein affekttheoretischer Blick auf ein psycho-sozio-archäologisches Forschungsfeld. In: Martin Endreß – Benjamin Rampp (Hrsg.), Resilienz als Prozess. Beiträge zu einer Soziologie von Resilienz (Wiesbaden 2022) 81–122. DOI: doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38270-4_4.
  • S. Schreiber, From Panarchy to Anarchy: The Relational Resilience of (More-Than-Human) Subjects in Processes of Subjectivation. In: M. Hinz – M. Renger – S. Schreiber – C. Heitz (Hrsg.), Theorizing Resilience & Vulnerability in Ancient Studies (TRAVAS): Blog resulting from the International Workshop 19.–20.1.2021. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5087810.
  • K. P. Hofmann, Keine Resilienz ohne Herausforderungen oder: die Suche nach den Ressourcen der Widerständigen. Archäologie Weltweit 1, 2020, 48–51. URL: www.dainst.org/documents/10180/4642304/Arch%C3%A4ologie+Weltweit+1-2020.pdf/0e33a0b1-0cdf-de5d-6d3b-ff495eed7ab9.
  • R. van Dick – J. Diamond, Resilient aus der kollektiven Krise: Wie Organisationen von Individuen und Nationen lernen können. OrganisationsEntwicklung 20,1, 2020, 46–51.
  • L. Rokohl – L. Erfurth – P. P. Pasieka, Was macht den Menschen widerstandsfähig? Resilienzfaktoren in diachroner und interkultureller Perspektive. Blickpunkt Archäologie 1, 2020, 69–74.
  • D. Gronenborn – H.-C. Strien – K. Wirtz – P. Turchin – C. Zielhofer – R. van Dick, Inherent Collapse? Social Dynamics and External Forcing in Early Neolithic and Modern Southwest Germany. In: F. Riede – P. Sheets (Hrsg.), Going Forward by Looking Back: Archaeological Perspectives on Socio-Ecological Crisis, Response, and Collapse. Catastrophes in Context (New York, Oxford: Berghahn 2020) 333–366.
  • D. Gronenborn, Vom Artefakt zum historischen Prozess – Multidisziplinäre Sammlungsforschung anhand eines Beispiels aus dem mitteleuropäischen Neolithikum. In: V. Hierholzer (Hrsg.), Knotenpunkte – Universitätssammlungen und ihre Netzwerke: 10. Sammlungstagung, 7. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Universitätssammlungen e. V.: 13.–15. September 2018 (Mainz: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz 2019).
  • A. M. Kunzler – A. Chmitorz – C. Bagusat – A. J. Kaluza – I. Hoffmann – M. Schäfer – O. Quiring – T. Rigotti – R. Kalisch – O. Tüscher – A. G. Franke – R. van Dick – K. Lieb, Construct validity and population-based norms of the German Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). European Journal of Health Psychology 25,3, 2018, 107–117. DOI: doi.org/10.1027/2512-8442/a000016.
  • D. Gronenborn – H.-C. Strien – R. van Dick – P. Turchin, Social diversity, social identity, and the emergence of surplus in the western central European Neolithic. In: H. Meller – D. Gronenborn – R. Risch (Hrsg.), Surplus without the state. Political forms in prehistory (Halle: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt 2018) 201–220.

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