A Commentary on Disruption as a State of Being and (Anti)Practice: Challenging ‘Resilience’ as the Late-Modern Recipe for Happiness

Edwards, Nico

Abstract

In this commentary, I challenge the popular notion of ‘resilience’ as the 21st century recipe for happiness. I do so through exploring ‘disruption’ as a political imaginary and practice, by which the narrative of resilience-equals-happiness can be disrupted. I draw on key texts that theorise about practices of ‘speculation’, ‘failure’, and ‘narration’ to situate both the personal (cognitive) ability to disrupt neoliberal subjectification processes and the systemic disruption brought about by Covid-19 as essential channels for rethinking the contemporary. I argue that this is the moment to re-imagine the templates for human co-existence and build on the personal to global experiences of disruption occasioned by global capitalism and the coronavirus, as productive, though painful, opportunities for counter-narration.

Citation

Edwards, N. (2022). A Commentary on Disruption as a State of Being and (Anti)Practice: Challenging ‘Resilience’ as the Late-Modern Recipe for Happiness. SOAS journal of postgraduate research, 14(2020-2021), 14-24. https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00037051

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Apr 12, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 12, 2022
• Journal: SOAS journal of postgraduate research
• Print ISSN: 2631-3812
• Electronic ISSN: 2517-6226
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 2020-2021
• Pages: 14-24
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00037051
• Keywords: Disruption, Resilience, Happiness, Global capitalism, Covid-19
• Publisher URL: https://www.soas.ac.uk/research/soas-journals-and-books/soas-journal-postgraduate-research