Rethinking Disaster Recovery: A Hurricane Katrina Retrospective

Jeannie Haubert

Lexington Books, Feb 5, 2015 - Social Science - 258 pages

Rethinking Disaster Recovery focuses attention on the social inequalities that existed on the Gulf Coast before Hurricane Katrina and how they have been magnified or altered since the storm. With a focus on social axes of power such as gender, sexuality, race, and class, this book tells new and personalized stories of recovery that help to deepen our understanding of the disaster. Specifically, the volume examines ways in which gender and sexuality issues have been largely ignored in the emerging post-Katrina literature. The voices of young racial and ethnic minorities growing up in post-Katrina New Orleans also rise to the surface as they discuss their outlook on future employment. Environmental inequities and the slow pace of recovery for many parts of the city are revealed through narrative accounts from volunteers helping to rebuild. Scholars, who were themselves impacted, tell personal stories of trauma, displacement, and recovery as they connect their biographies to a larger social context. These insights into the day-to-day lives of survivors over the past ten years help illuminate the complex disaster recovery process and provide key lessons for all-too-likely future disasters. How do experiences of recovery vary along several axes of difference? Why are some able to recover quickly while others struggle? What is it like to live in a city recovering from catastrophe and what are the prospects for the future? Through on-the-ground observation and keen sociological analysis, Rethinking Disaster Recovery answers some of these questions and suggests interesting new avenues for research.

Contents

• 1 Rethinking Disaster Recovery: 1
• Gender and Sexuality in the Recovery Process: 13
• 2 Trauma Recovery and Sexuality in PostKatrina New Orleans: 15
• 3 Its Raining Men: 27
• 4 Rebuilding for Safety: 39
• 5 Missing in the Storm: 53
• Race and Class in the Recovery Process: 69
• 6 On the Kindness of Strangers: 71
• 7 Disaster Reconstruction and Racialization: 89
• 8 Flourishing or Floundering?: 105
• 9 New Orleanss Katrina Recovery for Whom and What?: 121
• Doing Academia through Disaster Recovery: 137
• 10 Trauma Survivor as Author Method as Recovery: 139
• 11 Housing Market Mayhem: 153
• 12 Were Still in the Trenches Baby: 169
• 13 Learning from Disaster: 185
• PostScript: 205
• References: 211
• Index: 233
• About the Authors: 239

About the author

Jeannie Haubert is associate professor of sociology at Winthrop University.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Rethinking Disaster Recovery: A Hurricane Katrina Retrospective
• Editor: Jeannie Haubert
• Contributors: Elizabeth Fussell, Timothy J. Haney, James R. Elliott, Kristen Barber, Jean Ait Belkhir, Amy Bellone Hite, Farrah Gafford Cambrice, Jennifer Day-Sully, Shiloh Deitz, Erica Dudas, Dana M. Greene, Andrea Wilbon Hartman, Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo, Pamela Jenkins, Jessica W. Pardee, Mimi Schippers, Bethany L. Van Brown
• Publisher: Lexington Books, 2015
• ISBN: 1498501214, 9781498501217
• Length: 258 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Disasters & Disaster Relief; Social Science / Essays; Social Science / Minority Studies; Social Science / Sociology / General; Social Science / Sociology / Urban