Research Engagement after Disasters: Research Coordination before, during, and after the 2011–2012 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence, New Zealand

Abstract

This article argues that active coordination of research engagement after disasters has the potential to maximize research opportunities, improve research quality, increase end-user engagement, and manage escalating research activity to mitigate ethical risks posed to impacted populations. The focus is on the coordination of research activity after the 22nd February 2011 Mw6.2Christchurch earthquake by the then newly-formed national research consortium, the Natural Hazards Research Platform, which included a social science research moratorium during the declared state of national emergency. Decisions defining this organisation's functional and structural parameters are analyzed to identify lessons concerning the need for systematic approaches to the management of post disaster research, in collaboration with the response effort. Other lessons include the importance of involving an existing, broadly-based research consortium, ensuring that this consortium's coordination role is fully integrated into emergency management structures, and ensuring that all aspects of decisionmaking processes are transparent and easily accessed.

Disaster Research “Methics”: Ethical and Methodological Considerations of Researching Disaster-Affected Populations

“…In the absence of a unified code of conduct and better researcher self-regulation, countries have imposed policies to thwart the potentially overwhelming number of disaster researchers converging to the scene, and in particular, researchers who grab and go (Mukherji et al, 2014). In 2011, after the Christchurch earthquake, New Zealand put a moratorium on social science research, preventing outside researchers from entering the country (Beaven et al, 2016). The Indonesian government has implemented a special visa that outside researchers must acquire before entering the country and conducting research.…”

Social–ecological inventory in a postdisaster context: the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, Aotearoa-New Zealand

“…Second, the process of conducting the inventory provided a pathway to reestablish trust with the community and key actors. Following the Christchurch earthquake, there was justified criticism of the way in which some researchers had not respected the needs and perspectives of affected residents, of insensitivity to the social and cultural context, and of bypassing established relationships in pursuit of data (Beaven et al 2015). Mindful of this, the application of the tool provided a neutral forum to listen to stakeholders' experiences.…”

Returning Water Data to Communities in Ndola, Zambia: A Case Study in Decolonising Environmental Science

“…While we approached access to results as a key step in decolonising scientific methods, based on our reading of indigenous methodologies, the Belmont Principles of ethical research established as long ago as 1978 state that all communities should benefit directly from research, rather than one community bearing the brunt of research for the benefit of others. Some researchers have explored this in relation to post-disaster research in Aotearoa New Zealand [5,18], for example, and there are plenty of discussions around the ethics of using available or vulnerable populations for scientific research without regard for their wellbeing, with recent shifts particularly in medical ethics [19]. Yet it seems clear that these ideas are not as universal as one might imagine, and each vulnerable group-we think here of women, Indigenous peoples, and minority peoples of colour-struggles for the realisation of these rights in their own context [20].…”

“…Yet to this day, natural scientists are usually not required to go through ethics committees if they are considering conducting research about water, volcanoes, reefs, soil, vegetation, or other nonhuman, non-animal entities. It is thus less common to seriously consider normal ethical issues in research design unless pushed to by circumstance and interaction, for example, after serious disasters [5]. This is especially problematic when there is a wide power differential between communities and researchers, for example, in cases where outsider or foreign researchers are working in communities of Indigenous peoples, or those largely made up of people living in poverty.…”