Adapting to adversity: A comprehensive study of disaster resilience in Türkiye

Throughout years in the humanitarian field, I have always been impressed by the way people cope with challenges. So, I started to wonder what was affecting these coping levels? Why were some of us more affected while others were less affected when we experienced similar events? What determined these levels of influence? According to my observations, variables such as social support, solidarity, collaboration, level of preparedness in the face of crises, level of awareness, spatial connectedness, sense of belonging, and trust affected the way we respond to the challenging experiences. This pushed me to research topics such as disaster awareness, psychosocial resilience, individual resilience and community resilience. This thesis addresses critical aspects of disaster risk reduction by focusing on resilience levels of participants living in various cities of Türkiye after the Kahramanmaraş Earthquake. The research underlines the importance of society, socio-ecological, psychosocial resilience and disaster awareness as key variables in disaster risk reduction. The following aims guide the research: investigating resilience with different variables from various theoretical perspectives, developing a valid and reliable Psychosocial Resilience Scale, developing a valid and reliable Community Resilience Scale, examining the validity and reliability of the Adult Resilience Scale translated into Turkish (Jefferies, McGarrigle and Ungar, 2018), to examine the disaster awareness, resilience, psychosocial resilience and, accordingly, community resilience of participants. In addition, the research also examines the data obtained from the earthquake region in order to measure the impact of the disaster on resilience. Finally, it reveals the factors affecting community resilience. While it aims to make an original contribution to the literature, it has also included limitations, including the cross-sectional nature of the data. The study aimed to encourage future research to adopt longitudinal designs to more deeply understand the development of resilience over time. Briefly, this thesis aims to contribute to disaster risk reduction efforts in Türkiye by providing a multifaceted analysis of resilience factors, paving the way for targeted interventions appropriate to the specific needs of diverse populations. Keywords: Resilience, Disaster Resilience, Disaster Risk Reduction, Disaster Risk Management, Disaster Preparedness