| Summary: | This article seeks to amplify Bronfenbrenner‘s (1979) concerns with concentric
structured, nested systems and phenomenology, for Ungar‘s (2012) extension of
resilience to systems based on Bronfenbrenner‘s (1979, 1995) socio-ecological
paradigm. Resilience rests on interconnected assumptions regarding space, agency and
system blockage, as well as the role of individual phenomenological dimensions. This
article proposes a specific model of dynamic spatial systems of relation to underpin
agency and phenomenology in resilience, building on a reinterpretation of Lévi-Strauss‘
(1962, 1963, 1973) cross-cultural observations of contrasts between concentric and
diametric spatial systems; space is a key bridge between material, symbolic and
interpersonal domains of relevance for resilience. Agency in resilience is interpreted in
terms of movement between concentric and diametric spatial systems at social and
school microsystem levels, as well as for individual phenomenology. Space is not just an
object of analysis but an active constituent part of educational and developmental
processes pertaining to resilience, as a malleable background contingent condition for
causal trajectories. This framework of spatial-relational agency shifts focus for resilience
from bouncing back into shape, towards transition points in space, moving from
diametric spaces of splitting to concentric spatial relations of assumed connection across
different system levels.
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