Conceptualizing cultural resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic: A review

The Covid-19 pandemic indicated that our biological characteristics alone are not enough to deal with diseases. Resilience refers to the dynamic process of positive adaptation to unpleasant and unfortunate experiences which reflects our ability to control the situation and manipulate the situation optimally. This capability includes internal dimensions, the role of experiences and mental patterns, and external dimensions including the coordinates or community's efforts in mastering challenges. However, studies only focus on the concept of social resilience as an external dimension, and the role of culture as an independent component of identity has been ignored. In this review, the need to conceptualize cultural resilience has been put on the agenda.  In fact, the capabilities that culture provides through the various components that enable us to have the ability to adapt, change conditions, and improve performance in critical situations are studied.

This was a review of the literature. PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar, Magiran, and SID databases were investigated using the keywords resilience, community, culture, and hardness in Persian and English papers from 1990 to 2018. The articles were evaluated in multiple stages and finally 32 papers were analyzed.

As a result, we conceptualized that cultural resilience could include the following components: belongingness and rootedness, trust, commitment, sense of pride, and attachment.

Cultural resilience can be considered as the ability to adapt and deal with a crisis with the help of historical styles, myths, customs, and cultural beliefs.