‘Layered Resilience’ in Urban Context: An Investigation into the Interplay Between the Local State and Ethnic Minority Groups in Two European Cities During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This article explores urban ‘societal resilience’ during the global pandemic of 2020–2021. This health crisis involved a complex interweaving of social, cultural, political, and economic processes which involved both top-down measures undertaken by nation-state governments and bottom-up actions by local residents. In a research study undertaken in two European cities—Stuttgart and London—we focussed on two migrant minorities and the involvement by ‘experts’ and ‘non-experts’ in the meso-level where these top-down measures and bottom-up actions met. Our study provided a grounded understanding of ‘layered resilience’ where resiliency develops through the disjunctive order of communication patterns, public service delivery, institutionalized dialogue, narratives, and values. Through distinguishing between resiliency and resilience, we seek to illustrate the ‘elastic’ character of urban modes of integration. Our study suggests the need for more empirically grounded investigations into the continuity and difference between adaptation and adjustment, normality and normalcy, and resilience and resiliency. It also highlights the importance of context-specific and path-dependent notions of resilience and resiliency.