Devastating hurricanes frequently hit the small island states of the Eastern Caribbean. In 2017 alone, three hurricanes cumulatively displaced an estimated three million people. In some islands, tourism revenue or access to insurance provide the financial capacity to rebuild quickly in the aftermath of a storm, build up the infrastructure to mitigate further events and protect people and livelihoods. In other places, the same financial safeguards do not exist. However, less is understood from these fringes of the market economy, the rural island cultural processes, whether during early warning, displacement or the eventual reconstruction. This dissertation examines a case study of sparsely populated and undeveloped Barbuda, the smaller sister island in the twin-island state of Antigua & Barbuda, four years after Barbudans were completely displaced by Hurricane Irma while questioning: How is resilience negotiated in hurricane-prone islands? Using an ethnographic approach relying on expert and survivor episodic interviews triangulated through participant observations and stakeholder social media posts, a localized resilience framework will be constructed, demonstrating that resilience embedded in displacement processes is negotiated.