John Vick interviewing a Katrina survivor in his New Orleans home. Questions were broken out into six categories: (1) neighborhood and family (2) future plans (3) community involvement (4) reconstruction (5) media representation and (6) demographics. The interview protocol was semi-structured and included both open-ended and closed-ended questions, with most interviews lasting between 20 and 40 minutes. In order to be interviewed, individuals must have been residents of New Orleans before and during Hurricane Katrina. In Nashville, individuals were recruited from developments housing evacuees from New Orleans. This procedure resulted in a sample that was diverse in terms of economic class, ethnicity, age and amount of damage to home. Convenience and snowball sampling was utilized in New Orleans, accomplished by researchers approaching people in parks, cafes, bars, on the street, and knocking on the doors of homes in the neighborhood. Five neighborhoods with varying levels of damage and demographics (race, income, age) were chosen for the study. Interviews were conducted approximately six months after the disaster, which provided an opportunity for those affected to assess their situation post-disaster and identify their needs and concerns, reflect on their experiences, and consider their plans for the future. Qualitative interviews were conducted with evacuees of Hurricane Katrina currently residing in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Nashville, Tennessee. Based largely on the existing international research, communities often are surprisingly adaptive and resilient new leadership structures emerge, new organizations form to meet new challenges, and relationships with external agents (government, relief and other nonprofit organizations) develop and evolve. Few have examined the impact of displacement and resettlement on the community per se, which is critical to individuals' and families' ability to cope and adjust and to their decision to return and rebuild. Most of the social research on disasters in the United States has focused on short-term and potential long-term, stress-related individual psychological impacts, or regional and national economic impacts. In terms of socially-defined community, we examined loss of community, social disconnect, and neighborhood identity in the wake of disaster. We examined what neighborhood elements citizens want preserved, what they want changed, and who they feel should have control over the rebuilding process. John Vick and Brian Christens conducting research in New Orleans. In terms of physically defined community, the voices of long-term residents of diverse and unique neighborhoods are essential to the reconstruction of their neighborhoods to preserve the character and community that form such an integral part of their identity.
The study explores which factors determine the form, duration and success of community rebuilding (both socially and physically) following disasters and other forced relocations. history.Īn interdisciplinary research team based in the Vanderbilt Community Engagement conducted a study to examine these issues. In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and caused the largest displacement of whole communities in U.S. Conflict within the community often ensues. Their place attachments and identities are disrupted, causing both emotional and material loss. Survivors are displaced from their neighborhoods and community ties, and social networks often are strained or broken. In an alley in the French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana Photo by Courte VoorheesĪ major theme of disaster and forced displacement and resettlement research is reconstitution of community, which can be defined both physically and socially.
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