ABSTRACT
The chapter reviews some of the most important resilience literature thereby underlining a gap in the research concerning borders and borderlands as well as contemplating their basis from the point of view of border research. It then introduces a framework for approaching ‘borderlands resilience’; borderland peoples many ways of adapting and renewing their activities, and resistance, against social and material border transitions. The authors underline that the study of borderlands and how borders and border crossings are practiced in shifting conditions offer a different version of ‘what counts as resilience’ than what the neoliberal resilience discourse suggests. Historical and present identity formations within the structures of states and empires are central to understanding borderlands’ resilience. Understanding the resilience of borderland people also requires attention to their ways of ‘making sense’ of what is ‘a life worth living’ and what it takes for people and communities to live ‘a good life’.
