Flooding and the ‘new normal’: what is the role of gender in experiences of post‐disaster ontological security?

Abstract

Disaster researchers have long analysed disruption to affected residents' ontological security, often represented by routines and familiar landmarks. Surprisingly little of this work, though, assesses who is most likely to experience feelings of disruption. Using a representative set of survey data, complemented by follow‐up interview data from 40 residents affected by the Southern Alberta Flood of June 2013, this paper explores how demographic characteristics, such as gender and place attachment, impact on residents' sense of disruption and loss. The findings indicate that women and people with stronger emotional and social ties to their neighbourhoods are most likely to experience disrupted ontological security; home flooding and evacuation orders are also significant predictors. The qualitative interview data reveal that many participants felt unsettled and disrupted by myriad factors, such as ongoing construction, which prevented them from establishing a ‘new normal’. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for policymakers and service providers.

When rebuilding no longer means recovery: the stress of staying put after Hurricane Sandy

“…Yet what it means to stay in place in the context of climate change is as varied, uncertain, and shifting as are the experiences and outcomes associated with planned relocation, warranting fresh attention from scholars. Studies underscore the psychological toll that a radically altered post-disaster landscape can take on residents who return or remain, particularly those who have lived in the location for a long time and possess stronger place attachment and local social ties (Haney and Gray-Scholz 2020). Meanwhile, terms such as "solastalgia" and "stationary displacement" or "displacement in place" speak to the psychically-and often physically-damaging consequences of witnessing one's home and the surrounding environment degraded in ways that may be gradual but no less violent than sudden disruption (Albrecht et al 2007;Nixon 2011).…”

Disrupting the Complacency: Disaster Experience and Emergent Environmentalism

“…Following Hurricane Katrina, Hawkins and Maurer (2011) demonstrated how residents of New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward experienced these feelings of disruption and sought a return to normal. Along similar lines, Haney and Gray-Scholz (2020) found that many flood-affected residents reported a disruption to their familiar routines and landmarks and, importantly, that this disruption was much more common for women than for men. Other research also demonstrates the profound disruption of residents’ ontological security after disaster (Akerkar and Fordham 2017; Gorman-Murray, McKinnon, and Dominey-Howes 2014; Reid and Beilin 2015; Sousa, Kemp, and El-Zuhairi 2014; Zaretsky 2002).…”

Development, Responsibility, and the Creation of Urban Hazard Risk

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