Based on extensive empirical ethnographic fieldwork in northern Norway, the article examines social or cultural resilience and life quality in an island, fishing-based community. It is argued that resilience and life quality are interconnected when social or cultural resilience is considered. Life quality, not synonymous with life style or living standard, provides motivation (or lack of it) to cope or be resilient in times of social and environmental uncertainty and change. It is argued that community adaptation should be understood as resilient, but not just because contemporary residents are living at the same location as their forefathers. In spite of marked changes in resources utilized through generations, fish and fishing have continuously been, and still are regarded as, crucial to community viability and self ascribed identity of the residents. Collectivities do not make decisions, rather, it is persons who do. In this article the concept of 'social resilience' is indicated by the ability of a significant number of local dwellers to respond viably to surprising or unpredicted changes in natural and social environments. According to Hastrup (2009:20) resilience in socio-ecological systems resides inside people. Furthermore, few natural and/or social systems are completely isolated or closed, and most are in flux. This flux arises from a dynamic person-system relationship of mutual interdependence. Cultural and personal values are thus highly significant in studies of social resilience. Resilient behavior requires 'extended flexibility' (Hastrup 2009b: 265-267) -a flexibility that extends through a variety of different social settings and cultural contexts. Whether adjustments to novel conditions and

This article is a descriptive, person-centered ethnographic account of how villagers on a remote, small Indonesian island responded to and interpreted the behavior of a young man they labeled insane. Many local efforts to diagnose the illness, strategies for treatment and the prognosis for recovery were contested among the islanders. The villagers and the mentally ill person alike adhered to culturally prescribed models when they interacted and when they sought to assess what was happening. Although observable traits of severe malfunctioning show a wide cross-cultural distribution, cultural models and practices shape the social response to psychotic behavior.

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