Disability and disaster recovery: a tale of two cities?

This paper examines the connections between disability and disaster from a global perspective. Concepts from the research and policy literature are used to distinguish between individual and social models of disability, and between natural hazards and human disasters. These concepts are then employed to investigate data on the response to disabled people's recovery needs in two recent case studies: the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. The analysis combines primary, secondary and tertiary sources to explore disability issues in the reconstruction of inclusive communities and the lessons that may be learned about disaster preparedness in poor communities. The conclusions suggest that more attention should be paid to social model approaches, particularly in understanding global links with poverty, and that disabled people's organisations should be resourced as agents of disaster recovery and preparedness.     

Disability and Disaster Recovery

Abstract

This paper examines the connections between disability and disaster from a global perspective. Concepts from the research and policy literature are used to distinguish between individual and social models of disability, and between natural hazards and human disasters. These concepts are then employed to investigate data on the response to disabled people's recovery needs in two recent case studies: the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. The analysis combines primary, secondary and tertiary sources to explore disability issues in the reconstruction of inclusive communities and the lessons that may be learned about disaster preparedness in poor communities. The conclusions suggest that more attention should be paid to social model approaches, particularly in understanding global links with poverty, and that disabled people's organisations should be resourced as agents of disaster recovery and preparedness.     

Secondary Traumatic Stress in Social Workers Responding to Disasters: Reports from the Field

Social workers are called to respond to disasters to provide assessment, crisis counseling and trauma treatment as part of the recovery effort. While research has identified the types of interventions appropriate in assisting trauma survivors, little empirical research exists to help address the distress responses that social workers experience when exposed to the trauma material of disaster survivors and their families. Case examples can inform social work practice using evidence informed interventions and recording the outcomes. This article presents three case histories of social workers responding to disasters, the course of their secondary traumatic stress responses and their struggle to overcome the psychological adversity they faced.     

Report of the President of the Australian Association of Social Workers

Currently there appears to be a spate of world, national and local disasters. Always there is concern, not only about how to manage the immediate emergency, but how to facilitate the long-term recovery period. This paper presents a six-months perspective of a particular disaster and recovery period, based on the experiences of a recovery worker. It emphasises the importance of routine training for workers in organisations who may be called upon in a disaster. It notes that because of the unique situation in every disaster, decision making on recovery structures and processes needs to remain invested in the local community, with assistance from external resources. It makes other suggestions for consideration in the continuing building of recovery theory. Finally, it underlines the importance of the social work role in most aspects of disaster recovery work, and the need to prepare not only undergraduates, but professional workers, for this role.     

An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Disasters and Stress: The Promise of an Ecological Framework

This integrative literature review examines the sources of the persistent debate over the influence of disasters on individual mental health that characterizes the disaster research literature. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this paper highlights how the connections between individuals and the systems in which they are embedded influence people's varied responses to disaster. Consistent with the emerging emphasis in the social sciences on contextualizing individual behavior, this paper examines how family, community, social structural, cultural, and environmental factors affect the development of stress in disaster populations. It concludes with recommendations for policy, practice, and research related to disaster recovery.     

Media and Disasters: Demarcating an Emerging and Interdisciplinary Area of Research

This article provides an overview of the research and literature on media and disasters. Drawing on the central idea of a disaster as a social and media construction, I identify this young and rapidly emerging body of research as an inherent interdisciplinary area that has attracted the interest of many disciplines within social sciences. A first section of the article focuses on a characterization of (mediated) disasters and the question of academic relevance. Second, I adopt a historical perspective to reflect on issues of disciplinary concern, followed by an outline of the contemporary body of literature. In the final section, directions to advance future research on media and disasters are discussed.     

The Cultural Meaning of Disaster: Remarks on Gregory Button's Work

After the two major nuclear disasters I have witnessed in my life, Chernobyl and Fukushima, I experienced uncertainty that seemed stronger than fear, anger or panic. In George Button's excellent work I found my personal experience of uncertainty explained as a cultural phenomenon that indeed prevails after all natural and manmade disasters. He has been studying disasters for over 30 years as an academic and a reporter. He covered and reported on, for example, the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, the Exxon Valdes oil spill, and Hurricane Katrina. His book tells a powerful story about US disasters and their cultural aspects. However, I think that Button's research methodology and his findings can be applied to the Japanese situation as well. On the one hand, his book can serve as a warning on how not to act in the face of calamity if we want our culture to survive the suffering, and, on the other, it can serve as inspiration for domestic research on the most recent Japanese calamity. Button is interested in the way a disaster becomes a cultural, social and political phenomenon where uncertainty prevails and his focus on uncertainty as a main category seems to be a pioneering attempt that his book extends from previous studies. He focuses on uncertainty as an experience of affected people as well as the politics of uncertainty inflected in a time of calamity and finds that the two aspects are correlative.     

Promoting sense-making in volatile environments: Developing resilience in disaster management

Over the past decade, the research on disaster administration has taken a critical look at the command and control operations in disaster response and recovery. Following the notable bureaucratic failures in response to Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami in Indonesia, researchers have focused on disaster administration system. The various actors within the system should focus on sense-making and resilience to be agile in the face of catastrophic events. This study profiles the contributions made through a focus on developing resilience in disaster management. Through a detailed literature review in multiple areas of the disaster management literature, along with illustrative examples from the challenges that agents have faced in several recent global disasters from 2014 to the present, the importance of resilience is highlighted. Areas for future research are included.     

SOCIAL CAPITAL THEORY AS AN INTEGRATING THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK IN TECHNOLOGICAL DISASTER RESEARCH

Conceptual and empirical research on technological disasters has produced a number of seminal contributions including concepts of recreancy, collective trauma, lifestyle and lifescape change, corrosive community, secondary trauma, and the ecological-symbolic perspective. This article presents social capital theory as a comprehensive framework that incorporates and integrates these key conceptual elements and theories. After presenting fundamental elements of social capital theory, we demonstrate how key concepts in technological disaster research relate to social capital. We conclude that while social capital theory has merit and potential for improving our understanding of all disaster events, it is particularly useful in comprehending the multifarious impacts of technological disasters.     

Emotional Simultaneity and the Construction of Victim Unity

One of the concerns in recent work on the sociology of emotions is the link between emotions and social bonding. A version of this issue has also been discussed in research on disasters, with the focus being on how the crisis leads to the cohesion essential to recovery and rebuilding. This paper provides an analysis of a fire and its aftermath and shows how central emotions are to understanding the social psychology of the event. Most important here is the fact that, when identifying themselves as fire victims, those affected by the disaster assumed that they experienced the same profound emotions at the same time. This emotional simultaneity led fire victims to emphasize their bonds to one another and heighten their boundaries with nonvictims. In turn, this led to their providing social support, comparative experiences, and practical assistance to each other.     

Triage and Ethics: Social Workers on the Front Line

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the results of an international qualitative study examining the impact of terrorism and other disasters—both human-made and natural—on social work agencies and their labor force. The study was conducted with focus groups of social workers in health care and social service settings. The major research question concerned the impact of disaster—both natural and human-made—on agencies and social work practitioners. Focus was placed on the ethical dissonance experienced by social workers under pressure to prioritize how services and resources are distributed to those in need.     

黄浦江上游死猪漂浮事件引发的对跨界环境灾害治理的思考

上海与江浙周边地区对跨界环境灾害突发事件的联防联控,不仅事关上海城市民生和社会稳定的大计,还涉及长三角区域环境生态的共同治理保护、区域一体化的制度建设、区域可持续发展等一系列经济、社会、环境生态重大问题的解决。上海应建立跨界环境灾害联防联控的相应组织机构与协调机制,提升针对跨界环境灾害的应对能力,牵头开展长三角环境灾害共同治理的重点专题研究,主动参与源头地区环境灾害的共同治理和共同防范。     

Disaster‐time Economy and an Economy of Morals: A Different Economic Order from the Market Economy under Globalization*

With the experience of two severe disasters (the Hanshin Awaji Earthquake disaster of 1995 and the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster of 2011), I wish to consider “subsistence” as human life, existence equaling the basic activities of life, an essential mutual act‐like existence economy. In this paper, I pursue a positive development of “disaster‐time economics” as a research object under the larger framework of the formation of a “moral economy,” as part of a critical process. In this paper, in order that a stricken area and society may aim at the realization of a new methodology about “creative revival” for newly developing independent research involving the state of the revival fund of a wide sense is carried out. Nevertheless, there is an overall understanding of who, in what areas, and using what methodology, has conducted research in the restoration and revival process, as well as the weak points that tend to hinder the process. There is no research on the rationality and function of public finance expenditures or national sources expenditures. Therefore, in this paper, the term “disaster‐time economy” is newly prepared. From this concept, many activities of the project, service, support, self‐efforts etc. of a social and private domain are grasped from a public sphere in connection with the process of maintenance/restoration under the disaster. The feature and subject point of the process are clarified. The market economy order that is going to be produced in this process does the basic work and determines the economic order for another self‐subsistence over life.     

Stigma as a barrier to engaging in mental health services among adolescents who survive natural disasters

Many barriers impact the utilization of mental health services among adolescents who survive natural disasters. Although stigma has been identified as one of these barriers, minimal work examines the etiological factors that impact stigma and how these factors operate in perpetuating stigma among adolescents after a disaster. Understanding the role that stigma plays is a critical step to raising awareness of the cognitive and behavioral processes that preserve adolescents’ well-being, timely attainment of developmental milestones, and the potential for engagement in meaningful opportunities. We modify an existing adolescent self-stigma model to better understand how youth might respond psychologically to natural disasters both immediately after the event as well as during the long-term recovery phase. Future empirical research should assess the validity of these barriers within the suggested temporal framework. If this proposed conceptual piece is validated, interventions could be designed that directly address the role of stigma.     

SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND SLOW-MOTION DISASTERS: The Case of Detroit

In this article, I focus on problem substance use as one outcome of an underlying, "slow-motion disaster" caused by the long-term collision between corrosive structural processes, counterproductive social policies, and vulnerable populations. Using the city of Detroit as an illustration, I offer an original conceptual model for linking the causes and cascading consequences of slow-motion disasters. This model highlights the embedded connections between structural factors, such as racial segregation and systemic unemployment, and multiple destructive outcomes, including health and crime disparities, as well as problem substance use. Finally, I conclude that sociological researchers must engage with broader publics and diverse coalitions if they are to contribute to an alternative social policy—a holistic, regional "disaster response"—that takes multiple layers of causality into account, and addresses the core of vulnerabilities that make such disasters possible.     

Queer Domicide

ABSTRACT

This article examines lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) experiences of displacement, home loss, and rebuilding in the face of natural disasters. LGBT vulnerability and resilience are little studied in disaster research; this article begins to fill this gap, focusing on LGBT domicide—how LGBT homes are “unmade” in disasters. To do this, we critically read a range of non-government, scholarly, and media commentaries on LGBT experiences of natural disasters in various settings over 2004–12, including South Asia, the USA, Haiti, and Japan. Additionally, we utilize preliminary data from pilot work on LGBT experiences of 2011 disasters in Brisbane, Australia, and Christchurch, New Zealand. we find that disaster impacts are the first stage of ongoing problems for sexual and gender minorities. Disaster impacts destroy LGBT residences and neighborhoods, but response and recovery strategies favor assistance for heterosexual nuclear families and elide the concerns and needs of LGBT survivors. Disaster impact, response, and recovery “unmakes” LGBT home and belonging, or inhibits homemaking, at multiple scales, from the residence to the neighborhood. we focus on three scales or sites: first, destruction of individual residences, and problems with displacement and rebuilding; second, concerns about privacy and discrimination for individuals and families in temporary shelters; and third, loss and rebuilding of LGBT neighborhoods and community infrastructure (e.g. leisure venues and organizational facilities).     

Reliance on Faith-Based Organizations for Tangible Assistance in Times of Disaster: Exploring the Influence of Bonding Social Capital

Although there is a growing amount of research on the role that faith-based organizations play in disaster recovery, there is currently no research that has investigated the influence that social capital has on individual disaster victims’ proclivity to rely on these organizations for recovery assistance. This current exploratory research sought to observe the relationship between individuals’ bonding social capital, in addition to other individual characteristics, and their perceived reliance on faith-based organizations for tangible disaster aid in future events using a national survey administrated by the Associated Press–NORC for Public Affairs Research in 2013. As a by-product of the analysis performed, it is observed that bonding social capital is related to an individual’s perceived reliance on faith-based organizations, whereas other demographic variables such as race are not.     

Media Uses in Disaster Situations: A New Focus on the Impact Phase

The media, in the sociology of natural disasters, are mainly viewed as management tools used to influence people's preparedness and response to natural disasters. As a consequence, research in this area has been limited to the warning, preparedness, and recovery phases. Through interviews with residents of eight communities in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, impacted by Hurricane Georges in 1998, this paper shows that through integrating mass communication research to disaster theory we can obtain a more accurate picture of the media–audience relationship during natural disasters. In addition to the manifest functions of providing information, the media also have latent functions in disasters, which consist of emotional support and companionship. The media also help isolated individuals to feel connected with the "outside world." These functions are most salient in the impact phase of disasters. These functions are also particularly crucial as they have been shown to reduce the negative effects of stressful life events.     

Sex Composition,Masculinity Stereotype Dissimilarity and the Quality of Men's Workplace Social Relations

Previous research suggests that the quality of men's work group social relations varies depending on the sex composition of the work unit. Previous studies also suggest that men derive different benefits from working with other men than with women and that the higher status associated with men and masculinity advantages men in their relations with women workers. Previous sex composition studies tell us little, however, about the extent to which the quality of men's work group social relations with women and other men depends on how well a man fits dominant masculinity stereotypes. Drawing on sex composition and gender constructionist approaches to gender and work I investigate in this study the effects of men's individual similarity to masculinity stereotypes on the affective quality of their social relations with coworkers, given the sex composition of their work groups. The data for this study consist of male, mostly white, non‐faculty employees of a public university in the northwest United States. I discuss my results in terms of both individual outcomes and implications for understanding sex and gender inequalities in work organizations.