Podcasts from the SfAA

(This podcast was taken down on August 1, 2007. As part of the pilot project, it was decided that the podcasts from the 67th Annual Meeting would be made available only for four months. Sorry for the inconvenience!)

This session was re-published on May 30, 2007 because Eric Jones submitted some biographical information and Linda Whiteford with Doug Henry added an introduction to the panel and to each presentation- thanks everyone!

The first few minutes of Dr. Whiteford’s presentation did not record, but the rest of the session did record.

Applied social scientists have been studying disasters and complex emergencies for close to fifty years, with questionable results in terms of the application of knowledge. This panel asks what we have learned, how has it been applied, and what are the results? For instance, can our increased understanding of how the concept of ‘risk’ is manipulated result in policy changes? What have we learned from Katrina and other well-researched disasters, and are those findings being applied? How do complex emergencies become chronic disasters, and what is the role of social science in their mitigation?

Using Ecuador as an case example, Linda Whiteford and Graham Tobin demonstrated the value of collaborating with local partners at all levels. Doug Henry compared the bureaucratic commonalities between relief for West African refugees and those from Katrina. Greg Button traced the history of political policy failures relating to disaster research since World War II. Tony Oliver-Smith used the examples of Hurricanes Mitch and Katrina to explore those aspects of reconstruction that can contribute to sustainable risk reducation and lower environmental degradation. Finally, Eric Jones and Art Murphy performed a cross-cultural meta-analysis of disaster literature to examine formal and informal mechanisms of social support for mental health.

The participants (listed in the order of their presentations) are:

Linda Whiteford

• Recent publications:Globalization, Water, and Health: Resource Management in Times of Scarcity, (co-edited with Scott Whiteford). School of American Research Press, 2005.Primary Health Care in Cuba: The Other Revolution (co-authored with Laurence G. Branch). Rowman & Littlefield Publishing, 2007 (forthcoming).
• About the presentation: WHITEFORD, Linda M. (University of South Florida), and TOBIN, Graham A. (University of South Florida). Interlockers: From Disaster/CE Research to Social Policy. This paper uses the case of Ecuador as an example of disaster research being used to shape social policy and asks if the case is dependent on the country size, its position in the realpolitic, personal relationships and other idisyncracies, or if there are generalizations to be drawn from the case. Similar research being conducted in Mexico challenges the assumptions of applicability of the Ecuador findings. We discuss potential barriers and obstacles to the replicability of the results from Ecuador to Mexico, and search for means to overcome them.

Anthony Oliver-Smith

• University of Florida
• About presentation: OLIVER-SMITH, Anthony (Florida). Spaces of Feasibility: Human-Environment Relations, Vulnerability and the Research-Practice Gap in Post-Disaster Reconstruction. In post disaster reconstruction, the fundamental question to be asked is how the process can address the systemic environmental, economic and social variables that produce disasters in a way that is sustainable, reduces vulnerability, and enables people at the household and community level to survive. This paper examines the cases of Hurricanes Mitch and Katrina to explore those aspects of reconstruction that feasibly within the limits of action permitted by existing structures can reduce both environmental degradation and vulnerability to hazards.

Doug Henry

• University of North Texas
• 940-565-3836 (office)
• DHenry at pacs dot unt dot edu
• Doug Henry’s Power Point W-98
• About presentation: HENRY, Doug (University of North Texas). The Chronic Nature of Acute Crisis in Catastrophe and Relief. In hurricanes and violent war, poverty and marginality combine to ensure that acute emergencies become persistent. Bureaucratic constraints can be deconstructed, yet then reconstructed as barriers to efficiency, coordination, and future disaster mitigation. During relief, top-down approaches are normalized, preventing the development of individual agency among those displaced. This paper considers the structural commonalities of displacement from both New Orleans and Sierra Leone, West Africa, and the barriers to change and reform encountered in each.

Eric Jones (with Arthur D. Arthur & Isabel Perez Vargas)

• University of North Carolina, Greensboro
• ecojones at uncg dot edu
• website: http://www.uncg.edu/ant/
• Interests: human behavior in extreme settings (migration/colonization, hazards,
  disasters, economic collapse, etc.), ecological anthropology, economic
  anthropology, Latin America
• About presentation: JONES, Eric C. (UNCG) and MURPHY, Arthur D. (UNCG). Why It Was This Way Here and That Way There: A Review Cross-Cultural Disaster Studies. Generally, social science cross-cultural disaster studies have focused on post-disaster mental health or social support. Mental health research tends to toward the impact on individuals of the trauma associated with an extreme event, while chronic hazards are under researched. Within the field of social support, two broad distinctions are useful: 1) the differentiation of formal from informal support, and 2) the consideration of both positive and negative social relations. Cross-cultural research on interventions considers the relative import of ethnicity, class, gender and age in each setting as diverse disaster responses are seen in some settings yet not in others.