1st Edition
Empowerment and Social Justice in the Wake of Disasters Occupy Sandy in Rockaway after Hurricane Sandy, USA
This book taps into discussions about social vulnerability, empowerment, and resistance in relation to disaster relief and recovery. It disentangles tensions and dilemmas within post-disaster empowerment, through a rich ethnographic narrative of the work of Occupy Sandy in Rockaway, New York City, after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It details both a remarkable collaborative relief phase, in which marginalized communities were empowered to take active part, as well as a phase of conflict and resistance that came about as relief turned to long-term recovery.
This volume particularly aims to understand how community empowerment processes can breach pre-disaster marginalization in the aftermath of disasters. It connects with broader emancipatory literature on dilemmas involved in empowerment ‘from the outside’. In a future of potentially harsher climate related disasters and increased social vulnerability for certain communities, this book contributes to a full and nuanced understanding of community empowerment and vulnerability reduction.
This book will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, political scientists, and urban studies researchers, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in disaster management, disaster risk reduction, social vulnerability, community empowerment, development studies, local studies, social work, community-based work, and emancipatory theory.
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Chapter 1. Shaking Things Loose
Abstract
Meeting Occupy Sandy in Rockaway
Shaking Things Loose – Disasters as Windows of Social and Political Change
Barking up the Wrong Tree – Crisis Management’s Inability to fix Social Vulnerability
What does Occupy Sandy in Rockaway Bring to the Table?
Mixing it up – Living and Breathing the Field
Outline of the Book
Reference List
Chapter 2. Most Affected Least Heard
Abstract
Most Affected…
…and Least Heard
Conclusion
Reference List
Chapter 3. Ain’t no Power like the Power of the People
Abstract
Post-Disaster Empowerment Processes
Emergent groups in post-disaster settings
Inside Out or Outside In: a Puzzle of Empowerment
Conclusion
Reference List
Chapter 4. Tales of a Peninsula Shattered and Divided
Abstract
A Peninsula Shattered
Rockaway: from summer resort to a place of socioeconomic marginalization
A Peninsula Divided
Conclusion
Reference List
Chapter 5. Paths of Empowerment in Disaster Relief
Abstract
Cut from the Same Cloth: Occupy Sandy as part of the wider Occupy movement
A sister is born: Occupy Sandy emerges
"You are not the protagonist of this story"
Inclusion, Autonomy and Horizontality
Everyone is In: Empowerment through Inclusion
Everything is Good: Empowerment through Autonomy
Everyone is a Leader: Empowerment through Horizontality
Conclusion
Reference List
Chapter 6. Paths of Post-Disaster (Dis-) Empowerment
Abstract
Relief turns to Long-term Recovery
Empowerment through Participating, Organizing and Learning
"There were pieces of the puzzle that weren’t written in the books"
Disempowerment through Misrepresented Subject Positions
Disempowerment through Lack of Transparency
Organic Organizational Identity and Financial Question Marks
Hidden Agendas
Disempowerment through Silenced Resistance
"We’re feeling pretty empowered already"
Conclusion
Reference List
Chapter 7. Saviors Trapped in Disaster (Dis-) Empowerment
Abstract
A Summary of Sorts
The Savior Trap
The Intersectional Trap
The Resistance Trap
The Situated Marginalization Trap
A Trapped Disaster Scholar
Reference List
Index
Biography
Sara Bondesson, Associate Professor at the Swedish Defence University, is a political scientist interested in disasters, identity and power. Sara combines theorizing with ethnographic methods, since she believes normative, emancipatory and transformative theories are best explored from the ground up. Apart from the Swedish National Defence University, she is also affiliated with the Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS). In teaching future political scientists and crisis managers she works with participatory and scenario-based methodologies and usually mix it up with story-telling or improvisational methods.
