[Radix] Disaster Preparedness in Minority Communities?

[Kenneth Hewitt]

Dear Brian,

I sent this yesterday but it seemed to get truncated!

Dear Brian,

You might find a recent E-conference helpful on this. It was organised
by the Mountain Forum and ICIMOD out of Kathmandu, but had participants
from all around the world and not only mountain communities. I am
specifically recommending the actual submissions, mainly from folks
working with smaller and disadvantaged communikties. The route is

http://www.icimod.org/?page=203
and 
http://www.mtnforum.org/rs/ec/index.cfm?econfid=16

Contributions
1. case study(ies) [23]
2. lesson(s) learnt [4]
3. good or bad practice(s) [3]
4. anecdote(s)/story(ies) [3]

Since Ilan recommended some of the earlier literature, let me also
recommend, in the earthquake context,  Ian Davis'(1981) "Disasters and
the Small Dwelling" (Pergamon) and Andrew Maskrey's (1989) "Disaster
Mitigation: a community based approach" (Oxfam) and the various
publications of La Red in Latin  America (Alan Lavell and others). They
pay attention to the "after" as well" as 'before" of disasters -- a big
question for your endangered communities in California, given that
destructive earthquakes are not unknown wherever you look!
Reconstruction-after-disaster as well as expensive geotechnically-based
preparedness have been a  multi-billion dollar industry in the past. And
yet you are finding the most vulnerable groups still live in conditions
and on sites long known to be high risk.

These publications are not only good stuff on the topic; they remind us
that the resurgence of community-based, disadvantaged and
minority-focussed interest is partly about re-inventing the wheel. This
is not intended in any sense as 'put down' or to discourage the
initiative -- quite the contrary -- but to stay alert to another
dimension of this question:  we it is important to be alert to what must
be widespread and considerable interests -- cultural, institutional,
political and research driven -- that repeatedly marginalise not merely
these victims of disaster, but initiatives that would focus disaster
reduction around them! And I should also say that, when some of us
started promoting these approaches in the '70s and 80s, we found earlier
literatures also buried by mainstream developments.

This really was and is a struggle on two fronts, one in the arena of
disaster knowledge/power/causality paradigms, and another attempting to
shift funds and attention to better address the needs of those most at
risk. (I must thank Ilan for kindly referring to some of my work, but
most of it looks at the first of these two questions, more than the sort
of case  experience you seem to be asking about.)

Best wishes

Ken




>>> "Brian G. McAdoo" <brmcadoo at vassar.edu> 02/25/09 6:16 AM >>>
Colleagues,

I am curious if anyone has information regarding 
disaster preparedness in marginalized communities?

In the USA, these communities more often then not 
are minority communities, as dramatically 
illustrated by Hurricane Katrina.  There is a 
great deal of concern here in the San Francisco 
(California) Bay Area about an inevitable 
earthquake on the Heyward fault, which runs 
directly underneath the heavily populated 
communities of Berkeley and Oakland.  While there 
is a lot of work being done to raise awareness of 
this hazard, I am not aware of any efforts 
deliberately targeting minority communities, and 
I worry that because of their marginalization, they will be overlooked.

Is there an academic literature out there looking 
into racial/ethnic demographics and disaster 
preparedness?  I imagine that there might be some 
related to indigenous knowledge, but again I expose my ignorance here.

Thank you for your help.

Brian

Brian G. McAdoo
Blaustein Visiting Professor
Stanford University
473 Via Ortega, Rm 139
Stanford, CA  94305-4215
650.721.2398 (office)
845.249.9561 (mobile)

Associate Professor of Earth Science
Department of Earth Science and Geography
Box 735
Vassar College
Poughkeepsie, NY  12604

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