What is Hurricane Recovery? An Anthropological Perspective

By: Alexa Busby¹

¹ William & Mary undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in biology and environmental science

Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) talks with New Orleans resident after Hurricane Katrina (Credit: Wikimedia Commons 2005).

Hallarse: The Feeling of Being at Ease

Hallarse, a Honduran Spanish colloquialism used to communicate the feeling of being at ease, is not something I often think about. Each day I am certain there will be a bed to which I can return after school, food to eat for dinner, and neighbors to greet me with a friendly smile in our apartment hallway. 

The amount of thought I put towards the weather is minimal – aside from checking the temperature and chance of rain each morning to help me decide what to wear. Because of the privileged stability I experience, I do not often consider whether I am or am not experiencing hallarse at any given moment. Aside from academic stressors, I am generally at ease. However, for millions of people living in coastal areas on the frontlines of climate change, hallarse is rarely achieved. 

What allows me to experience this feeling of being at ease, while others do not? Is the only determining factor that hurricanes occur in those areas and not where I live – or is it based on something more? An anthropological perspective is essential for revealing what is truly preventing hallarse from being achieved in the aftermath of hurricanes. While hurricanes may cause initial physical damage in an area, dominant ways of being and understanding the world shape the ways these communities rebuild in the aftermath. That is, whether or not they can reclaim hallarse after the storm.

Social-Political Structures Shape Disaster Recovery

Water disasters like hurricanes and flooding are often thought of and framed as “natural disasters” that are unavoidable and simply a random act of Mother Nature’s will. However, when these “natural disasters” are re-envisioned through an anthropological lens, we can realize that the force and magnitude of water disasters are shaped by social-political structures (Barrios 2017). These social-political structures not only impact the initial damage done but also drive recovery efforts undertaken in the aftermath (Barrios 2017). An anthropological gaze would challenge us to consider how social-political structures influence water disaster recovery. It encourages reflection on what systems of power and ideologies are circulated by governments, aid organizations, and water disaster survivors to answer questions like what does recovery mean? and how is recovery best achieved? In a global world experiencing the popularization of neoliberal logics, this article investigates how neoliberal ways of being and thinking affect the recovery process in the aftermath of a water disaster. 

Furthermore, through this article, I hope to reveal how the “coloniality of power and knowledge” (Quijano 2000) enables capitalist and neoliberal principles to drive rebuilding after a water disaster. This sentiment is experienced by water disaster survivors in coastal communities around the globe who are navigating the recovery process in the aftermath of increasingly frequent and intense hurricanes. In the neighborhoods in Choluteca, Honduras, and New Orleans, Louisiana, “coloniality of power” (Quijano 2000) has greatly impacted the recovery process in the aftermath of Hurricanes Mitch and Katrina, preventing survivors from achieving their conceptions of successful recovery (Barrios 2014, Barrios 2011).

Neoliberal Hurricane Recovery: Case Studies

As Anibal Quijano explains in Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America, the arrival of Europeans in the Americas brought division in which Europeans viewed themselves as “conquerors” and all others as “conquered” (Quijano 2000). This binary method of understanding relations among peoples led to a legacy of domination and control by those “in power” which persists today, shaping water disaster recovery. Despite colonial administrative structures no longer existing in coastal neighborhoods devastated by hurricanes, colonial domination persists through the values, ideologies, ways of being, and social-political systems of those involved in the recovery process. 

Capitalism as a new global power promoted extractivist practices that homogenized diverse cultural histories and understanding, focusing all efforts on the control of labor for the production of goods for a world market (Quijano 2000). More recently, neoliberal logics have intensified the globalization of capitalism through the reduction of the world into costs and benefits that can be maximized for production efficiency (Barrios 2014). The values of decision-makers and their institutions (government, international aid organizations, universities) in communities devastated by hurricanes still hold and perpetuate the legacy of colonial power. Decision-makers exert a great amount of control over how, when, and where rebuilding efforts are undertaken, informed by capitalist and neoliberal ideologies that are ignorant of affected people’s understandings and visions of water disaster recovery. 

In Choluteca, Honduras, and New Orleans, Louisiana, “coloniality of power and knowledge” (Quijano 2000) is intimately involved in a community’s recovery from a water disaster (Barrios 2014, Barrios 2011). Coloniality of power and knowledge is articulated through expert discourse of recovery planning and overall “population management.” Knowingly or unknowingly, those in power in these communities promote neoliberal ideals by engaging people in profit-maximizing relationships, despite those same people not sharing such ideals. Instead, capitalistic and neoliberal ways of being are imposed upon affected people which limits their abilities to experience hallarse. In Choluteca, non-governmental organizations with the mission of “disaster relief” collaborated with local government leaders to build over 1,000 homes to replace those destroyed during Hurricane Mitch. The homes were built quickly and on small parcels of land, following neoliberal principles of maximizing benefit for the greatest number of families. However, rather than benefiting the greatest number of families, the design of homes prevented large families and neighbors from living together. The result was an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty among survivors, who refused to recognize the newly built structures as homes and conveyed that their vision of recovery had not been achieved (Barrios 2014).

“The values of decision-makers and their institutions (government, international aid organizations, universities) in communities devastated by hurricanes still hold and perpetuate the legacy of colonial power.”

In New Orleans, city planners tasked with designing recovery after Hurricane Katrina focused on “modern urban development” which promoted the neoliberal ideal of neighborhoods as sites of capital investment. City planners envisioned the recovery of New Orleans as economic revitalization (through the construction of shopping centers, business complexes, and monumental parks), which directly contradicted with residents who envisioned recovery as people returning to their homes and rekindling neighborhood kinship. When city planners’ conceptualizations of recovery were challenged by residents during participatory meetings, coloniality of power allowed planners to uphold neoliberal principles as non-negotiable facts. The city planners refused to incorporate residents’ suggestions in a meaningful way. In doing so, visions of recovery created by city residents were overshadowed and unable to be achieved (Barrios 2011).

Centering Local Narratives in the Recovery Process

The ethnographic case studies of Choluteca and New Orleans have prompted me to consider the importance of allowing those affected by a water disaster to articulate their own narratives regarding definitions of and plans for recovery. We need to develop ways of working toward recovery policies and practices that include, rather than exclude, the ideologies and ways of being of affected residents.

“Consider the importance of allowing those affected by a water disaster to articulate their own narrative regarding definitions of and plans for recovery”

By considering hurricane recovery and how it is pursued through an anthropological lens, we can understand the social-political structures that shape it (Barrios 2017). Further, the anthropological perspective prompts us to thoughtfully consider how the “coloniality of power and knowledge” (Quijano 2000) perpetuates capitalistic and neoliberal ideas during hurricane recovery, and then apply this knowledge to inform recovery efforts. Openness to rejecting dominant ways of being and accepting local ways of being can allow those devastated by water disasters globally to reclaim hallarse. 

As climate change causes water disasters to become more common, we must develop ways to combine the urgency of rebuilding damaged physical structures with the slower deliberation needed to listen to local narratives so those affected by water disasters can shape their own collective recovery in the aftermath.

References

Barrios, Roberto. 2011. “‘If You Did Not Grow Up Here, You Cannot Appreciate Living Here’: Neoliberalism, Space-Time, and Affect in Post-Katrina Recovery Planning.” Human Organization 70 (2): 118–27. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.70.2.d4356255x771r663.

Barrios, Roberto E. 2014. “‘Here, I’m Not at Ease’: Anthropological Perspectives on Community Resilience.” Disasters 38 (2): 329–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12044.

Barrios, Roberto E. 2017. “What Does Catastrophe Reveal for Whom? The Anthropology of Crises and Disasters at the Onset of the Anthropocene.” Annual Review of Anthropology 46 (1): 151–66. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041635.

Quijano, Aníbal. 2000. “Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America.” International Sociology 15 (2): 215–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580900015002005.