Drawing from the proceedings of an expert workshop with academics, researchers, government and NGO participants working in diverse countries in southern Africa and beyond, this paper reviews the discourse on resilience, both conceptually and in practice. We highlight opportunities to develop and apply a more situated, equity-sensitive and context-relevant understanding of resilience, particularly in the water sector. To pursue more just and resilient water futures in highly unequal and water stressed regions, we propose that researchers and practitioners (1) place greater emphasis on the transformative potential of resilience, (2) broaden the social dimensions of resilience to account more fully for intangible and other social factors, (3) engage critically with the decision-making processes and practices of building resilience, (4) contribute to the development of indicators and guidelines for building just and resilient water futures, (5) strengthen the role of situated knowledges, (6) critically engage with scale and boundaries in complex adaptive systems, and (7) strengthen the policy–science–civil society interface.

从与在南部非洲及其他地区不同国家工作的学者，研究人员，政府和非政府组织参与者的专家研讨会的会议记录中，本文回顾了概念和实践中关于弹性的论述。我们重点介绍了机会，尤其是在水行业，这些机会有助于发展和运用对弹性的定位，对公平敏感和与背景相关的理解。为了在高度不平等和缺水的地区追求更公正，更具弹性的水期货，我们建议研究人员和从业人员（1）更加强调弹性的变革潜力，（2）扩大弹性的社会维度，以更充分地说明无形资产和其他社会因素，（3）至关重要地参与建立复原力的决策过程和实践，