Conference: Bureaucratic Cultures, Rigidities, and Latitude in Interactions with Survivors During Disaster Recovery

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

Anthropologists have documented how asymmetrical relationships produce great suffering for disaster survivors. Yet, in the absence of a robust theoretical apparatus for analyzing the mechanisms of power exercised and contested in such relationships, there is limited understanding of how bureaucratic systems may inhibit recovery outcomes. This conference would convene scientific specialists working on issues of disaster recovery and preparedness to explore the intersection between bureaucracy and disaster recovery. The workshop broadens the participation of groups historically underrepresented in science. It will also facilitate the development of more effective methodologies and avenues for the dissemination of findings from anthropological research to promote public understanding of science and the scientific process. The conference also provides a platform for the training of graduate students in science and the scientific method. Finally, it will create policy recommendations on harm and risk mitigation from disasters that will be presented at the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction. Preliminary data collected by the Culture and Disaster Action Network (CADAN), a network of practitioners and academics, demonstrate that some individuals within bureaucratic hierarchies will engineer bureaucratic mandates to optimize outcomes for survivors. This three-day workshop aims to develop a clearer sense of what variables contribute to behavioral changes among bureaucratic actors oriented to such optimization. The fourteen participants include established and early disaster experts as well as doctoral students from a range a scholarly and professional disciplines. The project advances anthropological science in the areas of environmental risk, disaster preparedness and recovery, and theories of bureaucracy. It explores bureaucratic culture in disaster recovery, with a focus on its cultural logics, structural functions, and the normative assumptions that underpin its institutional mandates. The workshop aims to develop a conceptual model to provide a foundation for mapping the interactions between legal mandates, cultural norms, and bureaucratic precedent in addressing disaster recovery. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.