Project overview
The language used in public policy and media mediates discourses around resilience. We note an increasing use of the word in delineating how a ‘resilient’ individual and community should look like. There is prior work on the understanding of resilience particularly in the area of natural disasters as well as climate change and security. However, resilience discourses have also been recontextualised into debates about public health and social policy.
The style of public health messaging has the potential to inform and strengthen community mobilisation to influence policy decision making, but we first need to understand the process of its utilisation and adaptation. This pilot work around specific language references (resilience or synonyms) within the specific context of rising food insecurity and poverty (established determinants of health inequalities) will inform the design of research examining how political and media messaging and ‘labelling’ shape scientific and policy prioritisation and decision-making.
Objectives:
In the context of the ‘cost-of-living’ crisis, food insecurity and poverty:
Critically analyse the language and dominant ideologies attached to the ‘resilience’ reference in public health, policy, voluntary sector, and mainstream media content, with a particular focus on:
Exploring the uptake and purpose of the semantic field surrounding the words ‘resilience’ and ‘resilient’ in academic and professional communication.
Examining the balance of individual responsibility vs population-level conditions/policy impact attached to ‘resilience’ when used and/or received
Explore what members of the public with varying intersectional lived experiences understand by the words ‘resilient’ and ‘resilience’, when used to refer to them individually, their communities or the issues they have lived experience of
Activities:
Conduct a focused analysis of policy documents and media discourse
Conduct a qualitative focus group with members of the public to explore what messaging around resilience in the contexts described above means to them
The style of public health messaging has the potential to inform and strengthen community mobilisation to influence policy decision making, but we first need to understand the process of its utilisation and adaptation. This pilot work around specific language references (resilience or synonyms) within the specific context of rising food insecurity and poverty (established determinants of health inequalities) will inform the design of research examining how political and media messaging and ‘labelling’ shape scientific and policy prioritisation and decision-making.
Objectives:
In the context of the ‘cost-of-living’ crisis, food insecurity and poverty:
Critically analyse the language and dominant ideologies attached to the ‘resilience’ reference in public health, policy, voluntary sector, and mainstream media content, with a particular focus on:
Exploring the uptake and purpose of the semantic field surrounding the words ‘resilience’ and ‘resilient’ in academic and professional communication.
Examining the balance of individual responsibility vs population-level conditions/policy impact attached to ‘resilience’ when used and/or received
Explore what members of the public with varying intersectional lived experiences understand by the words ‘resilient’ and ‘resilience’, when used to refer to them individually, their communities or the issues they have lived experience of
Activities:
Conduct a focused analysis of policy documents and media discourse
Conduct a qualitative focus group with members of the public to explore what messaging around resilience in the contexts described above means to them
Staff
Lead researcher
Other researchers
