Articulating the Differences Between Safety and Resilience: The Decision-Making Process of Professional Sea-Fishing Skippers Gael Morel, University of South Brittany, Lorient, France, Rene Amalberti, Air Force Aerospace Medical Research Institute, Bretigny-sur-Orges, France, and Christine Chauvin, University of South Brittany, Lorient, France Objective: As the world's most dangerous profession, sea fishing enables discussion of the concept of resilience and its articulation to the notion of safety in complex systems. Background: In the small, emerging community working on this concept, the prevail- ing idea to improve safety is that resilience must be rtinjected into the know-how of com- plex systems. Method: Thirty-four male skippers, divided into two groups, took part in an interactive simulation of a fishing campaign. They had to make decisions in sit- uations of trade-off between safety and production goals. Results: From the time they left the harbor, the fishermen never gave up on fishing, even in extretnc conditions, and regardless of whether or not the catch was good. Not being suicidal, however, they used multiple expert strategies to reduce risk without giving up on their fishing activity. Con- clusion: Systems run by craftspeople are very resilient because they rely on a high level of adaptability, based on the actors* expertise, linked to an exposure to frequent and con- siderable risk. Each actor is responsible for his or her own safety. The final discussion bears on the question of knowing whether or not it is possible to design a safe system while preserving its craftstnanship and therefore its native resilience. Application: The resuhs of these studies suggest potential adverse effects of classic safety interventions in complex sociotechnical systems either in terms of professional reluctance to accept new recommendations or through the emergence of new sources of risk. INTRODUCTION Initially, the concept of resilience belonged to the physical sciences. Resilience is a body's abil- ity to withstand pressure and recover its initial structure after an alteration of its shape. American psychiatrists specializing in the treatment of small children were the first to adapt the concept to de- scribe an individual's ability to live, succeed, and develop in spite of adverse circumstances. From this point of view, resilience is "the art of navigat- ing the rapids" (Cyrulnik, 2001, p. 223). Quite re- cently, the notion of resilience has been extended to reseiirch on the reliability and safety of complex systems (Hoilnagel, Woods, & Leveson, 2006). The present research is situated in this context. This paper is an interrogation on the articulation and the difference between the concepts of resil- ience and safety. It is divided into three parts. The first is an analysis of the theoretical framework linking the concepts of resilience and safety: the second, a study, through observation and experi- mental situations, of the relationship between re- silience and safety in conditions of extreme risk using the example of professional sea fishing. The third is a discussion of the results of professional fishing and a general application of the concepts, through an understanding of the link between resilience and safety. The conclusion opens new avenues of research to refine the model and im- prove the safety of complex systems. THE EMERGENCE OF THE CONCEPT OF RESILIENCE Complex sociotechnical systems (e.g., trans- portation, energy, medicine) require safety mea- sures. Over the past 30 years, cognitive ergonomics Address correspondence to Gael Morel. Study Group on Health, Work. Infonnation and Cognition (GESTIC). University of South Brittany. Centre de Recherche. Rue Saint Maude. Lxirleni 56325 France: ginorel@univ-ubs.fr. HUMAN FACTORS, Vol. 50. No. i. February 2008. pp. 1-16. DOJ 10.1518/001872008X250683. Copyright © 2008. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.