An An Exploratory Study on the Middle Path Approach to Societal Resilience in Bhutan: Balancing Tradition and Modernity

Abstract

Bhutan experiences the digital age, the complexities of modernity have become a serious concern amid the escalation of climate-related challenges in the country to ensure societal resilience. This study explores how to balance traditional practices and modern resilience strategies in the Bhutanese context. Though Bhutan is well known for peace and prosperity in the world because of its protective policies driven by the Gross National Happiness (GNH), an important gap exists in maintaining a balanced approach between traditional knowledge and modern practices, challenging communities in climate-change impacts. Upon employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches, this study utilized a purposive sample to engage 51 relevant officials from diverse stakeholders, including the National Disaster Management Division, Local Government, NGOs, and Emergency Response teams in Bhutan. The findings depict that Bhutan’s traditional knowledge and practices hold significant potential for developing resilient strategies, however, owing to the deprivation of cohesive frameworks and systematic barriers, the effective integration with modern strategies remains disadvantaged. This paper reasons for a balanced middle path approach, ensuring robust advocacy programs for the synergistic blending between traditional and modernity as a strategy to establish dynamic societal resilience. This study identifies gaps and key themes in existing literature, emphasizing the effectiveness of resilience strategies, combining traditional practices and modern innovations. Based on this, this study also proposes actionable recommendations for the relevant stakeholders such as community leaders and policymakers. Eventually, this study aims to contribute to the existing literature in understanding more about Bhutan’s indigenous knowledge, leveraging its richness to implant with modernity to design sustainable resilience strategies at the time of future uncertainties. Keywords: Community  Resilience, Modernization, Middle Path, Disaster Management, Traditional Knowledge