Would so many white people struggling for life be ignored for so long? Racism explains some of what went on, but its route was indirect. There are non-racialist explanations, of course. Katrina led to unprecedented crisis and Bush’s appointments process put incompetent leadership in charge at FEMA. We already have Iraq to go by. The […]
As analyses and “spin” of the Katrina crisis grow, we confront the sort of public issue to which a social science response is urgently needed. Accordingly, the SSRC has organized this forum addressing the implications of the tragedy that extend beyond “natural disaster,” “engineering failures,” “cronyism” or other categories of interpretation that do not directly examine the underlying issues—political, social and economic—laid bare by the events surrounding Katrina. Essays on this site explore a number of subjects related to:
- Structures of vulnerability, including the race, class, gender, and age of those suffering most
- Political projects that have distorted the pursuit of “homeland security”
- Bias that has sent federal resources disproportionately to rural areas and suburbs rather than cities
- Media coverage of the disaster
- Response from the American public
- Philanthropic and charitable responses
- The physical infrastructure on which cities depend (and its vulnerabilities)
- The implications of the Iraq War
- Problems of oil dependency and related infrastructures
- Environmental policy and global warming, wetlands management, etc.
- Costs of “privatization” and cuts in government capacity
- Leadership at every level
- Law enforcement and public order
- Predicting “emergencies” and responding to predictions
- The economic implications of catastrophic events
- Comparisons: to the recent Asian tsunami, to 9/11 in New York, to earlier hurricane disasters in the U.S., etc.
Understanding Katrina
Empowering Knowledge: A Modest Proposal for a Broader Social Science Research Agenda in the Wake of Katrina
by James K. Mitchell
Katrina was such a big and complex disaster that it will be a long time before its many different manifestations are fully documented and understood. How the social science research community makes sense of this event will tell us as much about social science as it does about the human significance of Katrina; and how […]
Understanding Katrina
Questions about Power: Lessons from the Louisiana Hurricane
by Stephen Lukes
The following was presented as the Vilhelm Aubert Memorial Lecture at the Institutt for Samfunnsforskning in Oslo, Norway, September 22, 2005. In his interesting and adventurous book The Hidden Society Vilhelm Aubert wrote that Societies define, through their powerful agencies, certain structures and activities as central, proper and visible, while others are defined as peripheral, deviant and […]
Understanding Katrina
From Disaster to Catastrophe: The Limits of Preparedness
by Andrew Lakoff
One evening the week after Hurricane Katrina struck, the intrepid television correspondent Anderson Cooper was featured on the Charlie Rose show. Cooper was still on the scene in New Orleans, the inundated city in the background and a look of harried concern on his face. He told Rose that he had no intention of returning […]
Understanding Katrina
New Orleans: The Public Sphere of the Disaster
by Monika Krause
It is tempting to inquire about the “reactions of the public” to the events of New Orleans—Hurricane Katrina and its immediate aftermath. One could, for example, analyze the content of the media or survey opinions. With just a few days of delay the pollsters have started to do just that. There are, however, limits to […]
Understanding Katrina
The Criminalization of New Orleanians in Katrina’s Wake
by Sarah Kaufman
On Saturday, September 4, five days after Katrina came ashore, an estimated 25,000 people continued to wait to be rescued in New Orleans. The Superdome was “hell on earth” according to local officials, and 1700 hospital patients and personnel had been without power, food, water, or sanitation for five days. An article in the Times Picayune offered […]
Understanding Katrina
Political Floodwaters
by James M. Jasper
Great disasters focus the attention, especially when, to borrow from Samuel Johnson, they involve many deaths. First the news media and later blue-ribbon panels gather extensive information after disasters, but the attention goes deeper, into emotional and moral processes. In asking what went wrong, we frequently question ourselves about the kinds of lives we lead, […]
Understanding Katrina
Un/natural Disasters, Here and There
by Stephen Jackson
In October 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake struck California with a force equal to 7.1 on the Richter scale, claiming more than 60 lives. In February 1997, an earthquake struck north-western Iran, tearing apart rural areas and claiming 1000 lives. This earthquake was roughly one-fortieth Loma Prieta’s strength—but it killed more than 16 times as […]
Understanding Katrina
Bridges over Troubled Waters: What Are the Optimal Networks for Katrina’s Victims?
by Jeanne S. Hurlbert
We hear the refrain repeatedly: Katrina was different. The extent of the flooding, the level of economic disruption, and the length of time that will elapse before residents can return to their homes all distinguish this storm from its predecessors. Social scientists now confront the task of assessing what Katrina’s effects will mean not only […]
Understanding Katrina
Cities under Siege: Katrina and the Politics of Metropolitan America
by Stephen Graham
Even Hollywood, so skilled in fantastical depictions of urban apocalypse, would have struggled to imagine the horrors of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. As well as resonating unnervingly with staples of urban doom in popular culture, the tragedy has remorselessly exposed some of the darker sides of metropolitan USA in the Bush era. It has […]