Abstract:
In this article I explain how solidarity can support positive adjustment, collective in nature, where people face
chronic, cumulative stress and largely lack resources. I propose that when individuals use relationships as a way
to access and mobilise resources, an enabling ecology is configured to foster positive adjustment. Applying a
collectivist, transactional-ecological view of resilience I propose Relationship-Resourced Resilience (RRR) as a
generative theory to explain how resilience occurs as collective, rather than individual and subjective processes.
To do this, I draw on eight years of longitudinal case study data that were generated using a Participatory
Reflection and Action (PRA) approach with partnership schools (N = 12, primary = 9, secondary = 3; urban = 9,
rural = 3) and teachers (N = 74, female = 63, male = 11). The RRR model posits that, when under threat of
chronic stress in a poverty setting, a collective response is to flock (rather than fight or flight). Flock entails a
process of alone-standing individuals, experiencing shared and persistent burdens, connecting to access, share,
mobilise and sustain use of resources for positive adaptation. RRR extends current resilience views of subjective,
individual adjustment to individually reported stress in the direction of resilience as collective experiences
of continual stress with subsequent collective positive adaptation.
