Ontological Resilience Beyond Adaptation: Ethical, Relational and Spiritual Practices of a Sufi‐Inspired Rural Community in Türkiye

This paper develops the concept of ontological resilience through an ethnographic study of a Sufi‐inspired rural community in southwestern Türkiye. Based on eight months of fieldwork, it examines how resilience is enacted not as a technical adaptation but as an ethical and spiritual practice of living with vulnerability. Participants framed resilience through four interwoven dimensions:

collective care

in sharing labour and resources;

ecological atonement

in humility towards land, water and non‐human beings;

affective labour

in cultivating patience, love and hope; and

more‐than‐human solidarity

in recognising other species as companions in endurance. The findings show that resilience is ambivalent rather than harmonious: communal life entails disagreements, uneven responsibilities and economic hardship, yet these frictions become opportunities for ethical cultivation. By situating resilience within a Sufi cosmology of interconnectedness, the paper extends critical resilience studies, highlights the role of spiritual ontologies and offers resources for reimagining socio‐ecological futures in times of uncertainty.