| Author/Contributor(s): | Shwaikh, Malaka |
| Publisher: | Pluto Press |
| Date: | 5/20/2027 |
| Binding: | Paperback |
| Condition: | NEW |
Against Resilience is a provocative challenge to one of the most celebrated and unquestioned ideas of our time.
Drawing on years of research and conversations with people living through war, occupation, and displacement, as well as her own lived experiences as a Palestinian from Gaza, Malaka Shwaikh argues that resilience, when expected rather than chosen, becomes a political instrument that shifts responsibility from systems of violence onto people forced to endure that violence.
Rather than confronting injustice, the valorisation of resilience often normalises suffering, rewards endurance, and obscures accountability. Challenging dominant approaches in peacebuilding, humanitarianism, and international development, Shwaikh explores the politics of survival, the co-optation of the Palestinian concept of sumud (steadfastness), and the emotional demands placed on people living through violence.
Against Resilience calls for a radical reimagining of responses to injustice—one grounded not in endless endurance but in justice, dignity, collective care, and the right to resist.