Search

This paper draws on the geographies of emotion and masculinities literature to explore rural men's experiences of the 2016 Kaikōura/Waiau earthquake in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 men affected by the earthquake. Geographies of emotion enable reflection on the social context and individual circumstances of those impacted by natural hazard events, thereby contributing to understanding the way local constructions of gender influence people's experiences of disasters. The paper highlights how emotions are present regardless of how antipodean notions of hegemonic masculinity, reflecting stoicism and reserve, shape disaster responses. The research identified that two years on from the earthquake, men were still emotional when talking about the earthquake, yet attempted to silence their emotional distress. Through an analysis of emotion, men's hidden vulnerabilities and capacities, which are linked to sets of understandings about masculinities in place, are captured. This research illustrates the value of undertaking analysis of men's emotions in disaster spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of information technology during the COVID-19 pandemic raises significant questions around the protection of personal data in a disaster. This paper considers how the clear benefits of using and sharing such data in disaster scenarios can be achieved while recognising an individual's right to privacy through examining the experiences of Taiwan and New Zealand. These states represent two successful COVID-19 response strategies which utilised different approaches to the use of technology. In Taiwan, the response made significant use of personal data and information technology. New Zealand, by contrast, has relied upon stringent lockdowns and extreme limits upon personal freedoms. The paper considers the different approaches to data and privacy that underpinned these responses and considers whether New Zealand can learn from the Taiwanese experience in future disaster planning. In doing so, the paper concludes by examining the wider question of when and if the community's expectation of a safe environment should trump the rights of individuals to retain personal data both in the context of pandemics and in other emergency or disaster scenarios. It also raises deeper questions, exposed by the COVID-19 response, about whether our current approach to privacy is sustainable in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The media plays a significant role in constructing the public meanings of disasters and influencing disaster management policy. In this article, we investigate how the mainstream and LGBTI media reported—or failed to report—the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) populations during disasters in Brisbane, Australia and Christchurch, New Zealand. The implications of our work lie within recent disasters research suggesting that marginalized populations—including LGBTI peoples—may experience a range of specific vulnerabilities during disasters on the basis of their social marginality. In this article, we argue that LGBTI experiences were largely absent from mainstream media reporting of the Brisbane floods and Christchurch earthquake of 2011. Media produced by and about the LGBTI community did take steps to redress this imbalance, although with uneven results in terms of inclusivity across that community. We conclude by raising the possibility that the exclusion or absence of queer disaster narratives may contribute to marginality through the media’s construction of disasters as experienced exclusively by heterosexual family groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Following the 2010–2011 earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, many nonprofit organizations changed or expanded services to address emergent or compounded risks. This research is based on interviews with thirty local community nonprofit managers and discussions with five staff focus groups conducted in 2014. Preexisting nonprofits with flexible organizational structures and emergent nonprofits succeeded in providing services during the emergency response and early recovery phases; nonprofits contracted with the government were better suited for long-term recovery. Shared resources among nonprofit agency connections contributed to successful transitions from response to recovery. Similar organizational resilience factors might occur in other major cities following disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The earthquakes that rocked the city of Christchurch and surrounding districts in Canterbury, New Zealand, were to take their toll on families, schools and communities. The places that had once represented safety and security for most children were literally and figuratively turned upside down. Rather than reinforce the trauma and continue to frame children as passive victims, the study reported here aimed to help children reframe their experiences through active engagement in participatory research projects. This article reports on three schools drawn from a UNESCO-funded project in which schools recorded their earthquake stories. While children were the centre of each of the school’s earthquake stories, schools engaged children to different extents in their chosen projects. These three schools exemplify different places along a continuum of children’s engagement in research on their own experiences. In one school, children, families, teachers and the principal all contributed to an illustrated book of their experiences. In another school, children created a series of mosaic panels to record the community’s story before, during and after the earthquakes. In the third school, children became documentary makers and interviewed other children about their earthquake experiences. In all cases, children found their projects positive and helpful activities, enabling them to put their experiences into a broader context. This article argues that schools have an important role to play in providing emotional processing activities which help children gain perspective and distance as part of their recovery from large-scale disaster events. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]