RAPID: Civil Infrastructure and Reconstruction Efforts following Hurricane Matthew

Northern Illinois University, Dekalb IL

Investigators

Abstract

As a uniquely destructive and deadly 2016 Atlantic storm, Hurricane Matthew has offered both the opportunity and obligation for understanding what sociocultural variables contribute to the efficacy of disaster recovery and relief efforts. The RAPID project explores the extent to which post-disaster rebuilding efforts are impacted by civic infrastructure, such as sharing practices, solidarity ties, and institutional variation in evaluation methods among non-governmental and governmental organizations. Findings will be disseminated to aid organizations involved in disaster recovery efforts. Reports would offer practitioners and researchers of humanitarian aid/ disaster response a model for a more robust assessment tool that leverages local resilience, particularly the sharing relationships and institutions. The research also fosters international collaboration among scientists, broadens the participation of underrepresented groups in the sciences, and will train undergraduate and graduate students in methods of anthropological data collection and analysis. Dr. Mark Schuller of Northern Illinois University will explore recovery efforts in Haiti, where Hurricane Matthew caused the largest loss of life and infrastructural damage. The devastation is still being assessed, however the material costs, particularly in the South and Grand'Anse provinces, is quite significant: over 80 percent of structures were severely damaged or destroyed, trees were either felled or stripped of foliage, including staple crops such as breadfruit, and the season's ground crops were also destroyed, along with many irrigation systems. With a team of researchers from the Faculté d'Ethnologie, the State University of Haiti, the PI will developing a sampling frame to identify existing and emergency leaders and agencies, and through a range of ethnographic data collection and analysis tools, explore to what extent sociocultural variables, such as solidarity ties, moral and ethical systems that emphasize values such as sharing, and perspectival diversity among various organizations and entities, are influencing recovery efforts. This research offers a timely, unique, and an urgently-needed opportunity to quickly assess the sociocultural ideologies, belief systems, practices and institutions that are central to the rebuilding effort, offering a clear, early case study with which to evaluate theories of resilience and the relief-to-development continuum, particularly the transition from "emergency" phase to "reconstruction." Communities' own actions and assessments are often missing from these assessments. Hurricane Matthew offers a unique opportunity to collect data now, before the humanitarian apparatus is fully established.