Organizing Theories for Disasters into a Complex Adaptive System Framework (original) (raw)
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WIT Transactions on the Built Environment, 2019
ABSTRACT This paper is based on the analysis of data collected as part of a research conducted through National Science Foundation (NSF) grant 1760504 – RAPID: Disaster Preparedness and Response within Communities Affected by Hurricane Harvey. Our co-autoethnographic study focused on response and short-term recovery in Hurricane Harvey. It consisted of in-depth interviews conducted with emergency management officials, first responders, members of non-governmental organizations, civic leaders, spontaneous volunteers, and flooding victims coupled with an analysis of Crowdsource (spontaneously created virtual platform for citizens’ response) data. Our results point to the phenomenon of unstrapping identified across standard operating procedures, organizational arrangements, formal communication flows, formal emergency management processes, and resource utilization protocols. While unstrapping has been evidenced in our study to be perceived as threatening by emergency management and response entities, we adapt a complexity-informed worldview to propose unstrapping representing natural processes inherent to complex adaptive systems. Our study highlights unpredictability and change in human and organizational systems and give rise to self-organization, self-regulation that ultimately gives rise to resilience and adaptability. Implications for emergency management and policy are discussed.
2021
The Western Cape of South Africa is a dynamic province that is disaster-prone, in particular<br> the vulnerable urban communities in and around its environs. Such communities are more<br> vulnerable to wildfire, flooding, drought, pandemic and other natural and human-made<br> disasters because of poverty and, consequently, poor living conditions such as overcrowding<br> and non-understanding of community resilience. The inability of these communities to<br> understand community resilience and withstand adversities affects the sustainability of<br> initiatives to develop them. This study aims to identify the mechanisms influencing the level<br> of understanding of community resilience in a vulnerable community and to contribute to the<br> understanding of community resilience to disaster risk. Fieldwork was conducted in an<br> informal settlement in the Western Cape. The research study was conducted in two cycles of<br> data...