Timothy J. Haney

Limits to social capital: comparing network assistance in two New Orleans neighborhoods devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Sociological research emphasizes that personal networks offer social resources in times of need and that this capacity varies by the social position of those involved. Yet rarely are sociologists able to make direct comparisons of such inequalities. This study overcomes this methodological challenge by examining network activation among residents of two unequal neighborhoods severely devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Results indicate that local network capacities of Lower Ninth Ward residents relative to those of the more affluent Lakeview neighborhood dissipated before, during, and after the disaster to erode the life chances of individual residents and the neighborhood they once constituted.

Reconciling Academic Objectivity and Subjective Trauma:The Double Consciousness of Sociologists who Experienced Hurricane Katrina

This paper utilizes Du Bois’ double consciousness, as well as insights from feminist theory and critical pedagogy, to examine the tensions involved in being both a professional sociologist and a New Orleanian affected by Hurricane Katrina. We argue that sociologists from New Orleans face barriers that prevent us from writing and teaching about Katrina ‘objectively’, as many in our discipline demand, while simultaneously discouraging us from engaging in research and teaching that draw on personal experiences with Katrina. We are told by reviewers, editors, and colleagues that our experiences, construed as biases, are inappropriate for our writing and our classrooms. We contend that much important knowledge about Hurricane Katrina will never be created, and the knowledge that is created will be largely written and taught by those who did not experience the storm first-hand. This paper reconciles two conflicted consciousnesses by deconstructing the situation encountered by sociologists from New Orleans.

“The River Is Not the Same Anymore” Environmental Risk and Uncertainty in the Aftermath of the High River, Alberta, Flood

Even when individuals are aware of and well educated about environmental issues such as climate change, they often take little action to mitigate these problems. Yet, catastrophic events, such as disasters, have the potential to rupture or disrupt complacency toward environmental problems, forcing people to consider the potential effects of human activity on the environment as they expose how environmentally harmful practices put people at risk. This article is based on focus group interviews with 46 residents of High River, Alberta, a rural community hardest hit by the 2013 Southern Alberta flood. It examines whether and how experiencing the flood prompted residents to think about the environment or interact with it in new ways. Findings suggest that residents voice a contradiction—while they believe that preflood human activity such as deforestation, river diversion, and home building altered the environment and placed communities like their own at risk, they also argue that natural forces such as disasters are immune to human efforts to control them. Residents feel their environment is less stable and predicable since the flood, and they worry more about toxicity and associated environmental health risks. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for environmental sociology and public policy.

‘There’s always winners and losers’: traditional masculinity, resource dependence and post-disaster environmental complacency

ABSTRACT The 2013 Southern Alberta flood was a costly and devastating event. The literature suggests that such disasters have the potential to spur greater environmentalism and environmental action, as residents make connections between global environmental change and local events. However, the literature also suggests that residents in communities dependent on fossil fuel extraction might see technological disasters, like oil spills, as threats to their economic well-being, thereby limiting environmental reflexivity. Given that Alberta is home of the tar sands, how might a flood disaster affect men’s environmental views, given both traditional notions of masculinity and men’s economic dependence on oil production? Using a survey of 407 flood-affected residents of Calgary and in-depth qualitative interviews with 20 men directly impacted by the flood, this article demonstrates men’s decreased tendency to change their environmental views after the flood. The qualitative data reveal that men justify this reluctance by shifting blame for climate change to the Global South, by arguing for the economic centrality of the tar sands for Alberta, and by discussing how a warming climate will largely be a positive outcome for Alberta. The article concludes with discussion of relevance for environmental sociology and for public policy.

Does compassion go viral? Social media, caring, and the Fort McMurray wildfire

ABSTRACT In May 2016, an enormous wildfire threatened the city of Fort McMurray, Alberta and forced the evacuation of all of the city’s residents. Outpourings of support teemed in from all across Canada and over the world, prompting the largest charitable response in Canadian Red Cross history. This paper examines Albertans’ response to the wildfire by exploring caring and helping behaviors as well as the role of social media in facilitating these remarkable charitable efforts. The paper uses mixed methods including an analysis of the most popular Tweets related to the wildfire and an Alberta survey collected months after the disaster. The analysis of tweets reveals that care, concern, and invitations to help were prominent in social media discourse about the wildfire. The analysis of survey data demonstrates that those who followed news about the wildfire on social media express higher overall levels of care and concern for those affected, which led to helping those impacted by the wildfire. The findings provide important insights about the role of social media in disaster relief and recovery as well as citizens’ civic engagement.

The experiential gap in disaster research: Feminist epistemology and the contribution of local affected researchers

ABSTRACT In this article, we make the case for a situated knowledge of disasters. By applying a feminist standpoint framework, we argue that an ethic of “objectivity” and a privileging of the unattached researcher creates an experiential gap in the disaster literature whereby researchers who themselves experience disaster are undervalued and underrepresented. We analyze reflexive accounts by disaster researchers to show what epi stemological barriers emerge from conventional processes of inquiry and the systematic disadvantaging of local, affected researchers. We also study patterns in articles by “outsider” and “insider” researchers, focusing on differences and similarities in research questions, reflexivity, relationships with and access to participants, and larger theoretical goals. This comparison reveals that the unique position of affected researchers can help to bridge formal knowledge and practical life knowledge, creating new and worthwhile paths to understanding the social effects of disaster.

OFF TO MARKET: NEIGHBORHOOD AND INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYMENT BARRIERS FOR WOMEN IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICAN CITIES*

ABSTRACT: This paper endeavors to create a better understanding of the barriers to employment faced by disadvantaged urban women in the post–welfare reform era. Using data from the Project on Devolution and Urban Change, a unique geographically linked, longitudinal, multicity set of survey data, logistic regression models weighs the relative importance of individual barriers to employment (e.g., poor health, childcare, family responsibilities) and contextual or neighborhood barriers to employment (e.g., poverty rate, joblessness rate) on labor market outcomes. Results reveal that several neighborhood characteristics are predictive of employment outcomes, including automobile access, female-headedness, vacancy, and disorder. Results suggest a more complex, nuanced interplay between neighborhood-level variables and individually measured variables in preventing some women from obtaining both modestly paying employment with few allocated hours of work per week, and also better-paying jobs with more hours of work per week.

D is for Disaster

Kathryn Wells and Timothy J. Haney on a subgenre of children’s literature.