Women rebuilding lives post-disaster: innovative community practices for building resilience and promoting sustainable development
Summary (2 min read)
Introduction
- Disasters such as floods, wildfires, earthquakes, and hurricanes result in devastating effects on people, economies, and the environment.
- Climate change, population growth, patterns of economic development, pollution, increased urbanisation, unsustainable development, andwidening social andeconomicdisparities have contributed toa recentdramatic increase in global disaster events.
- Altruistic humanitarian impulses are also stymied through national self-interest, as has occurred in climate change discussions.
- The article then presents key points from the research into women’s experience from the two study contexts.
Understanding resilience
- The authors research partnership is contributing to a more nuanced understanding of resilience in post-disaster contexts designed to better understand human society–environment interactions, primarily based on social action and social justice approaches.
- According to Ungar, resilience is both the capacity of individuals to navigate their way to the psychological, social, cultural and physical resources that build and sustain their well-being, and their individual Julie Drolet et al.
- Gender & Development Vol. 23, No. 3, 2015 435 and collective capacity to negotiate for these resources to be provided in culturally meaningful ways.
- The role of ‘social capital’ (that is, relations of mutual support between neighbours, friends, community groups, and other social networks) is considered by Robin Ersing (2012) as a means to enhance community resilience.
- Recent social work approaches to disasters also highlight the importance of environmental justice, arguing that this is integral to social justice, and the realisation of human rights and sustainable development (Dominelli 2012).
Linking DRR to sustainable development
- Under the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, governments have sought to increase resilience capacity by focusing on community-based disaster risk reduction , and linking this to the Sustainable Development Goals that have replaced the Millennium Development Goals.
- Critically, when the authors examined the common factors arising from their research in the case-study sites, they noted that life-stage and structural factors, including taken-forgranted gendered patterns and practices, shape particular vulnerabilities for women.
- From their role in maintaining the home environment to rebuilding the community, the study shows the vulnerability and capability of women in post-disaster activities.
- And the difficulties involved in conforming to norms of seclusion, women attempted to adhere to these norms wherever possible.
Case study 2: Hurricanes in Volusia County, Florida, USA
- As suggested at the start of the article, resilience has individual and collective dimensions, and individuals respond to, and recover from, disasters within an environmental and social context.
- A focus group session was held with affected women who spoke limited English, and Julie Drolet et al.
- During the focus group, members of the migrant labourer community spoke of the strength found within their collective actions to unite and support each other during the early stages of disaster recovery.
Notes
- 2 The Australian bushfires occurred in the state of Victoria on 7 February 2009 and is the single largest disaster to occur in Australia during peacetime since Federation.
- Thousands of people were deeply affected by the traumatic experience of the Black Saturday bushfires that resulted in 173 people losing their lives, over 2,000 homes lost, and 78 towns impacted.
- The Australian country team conducted research in partnership with affected communities in 2013–14 to learn about their experiences.
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Citations
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Cites background from "Women rebuilding lives post-disaste..."
...Drolet et al. (2015) studied how a small group of women spontaneously organised support to migrant communities in response to hurricanes in 2004 and 2005....
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...often portray women as passive, helpless victims, lacking agency (Bradshaw and Fordham 2013), a portrayal supported by evidence that women are more vulnerable to hazards than men (Dhungel and Ojha 2012; Drolet et al. 2015; Horton 2012)....
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...Vulnerability studies often portray women as passive, helpless victims, lacking agency (Bradshaw and Fordham 2013), a portrayal supported by evidence that women are more vulnerable to hazards than men (Dhungel and Ojha 2012; Drolet et al. 2015; Horton 2012)....
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...Disasters therefore present an opportunity to challenge gender disparities (Alston 2013; Drolet et al. 2015), but less is known about the extent to which disasters foster progressive change or under what conditions this can occur (Pacholok 2013)....
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67 citations
Cites background from "Women rebuilding lives post-disaste..."
...DRR is also a significant part of sustainable development [7,12,13]....
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...The relations of mutual support among neighbors is a primary component of social capital, the role of which in the enhancement of community resilience has already been widely recognized and promoted [7,32]....
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31 citations
28 citations
References
6 citations