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I am interested in seeing how social ties and networks have been used to cope with (un)natural disasters. My research focus on places under disasters conditions such as Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria, in which social ties have made the difference between life and death. Furthermore, “natural” disaster has been used to approved austerity measures and unjust policies to impoverished communities like in New Orleans after Katrina. These policies were not new, as they are rooted in structures of power to preserve the status quo. Yet, people have resisted, “through a network of branches, cultures, and geographies” that has stimulated a reflective process of looking within for solutions rather than outside. As often this outside solutions are not only detached from community’s reality but can perpetuate social injustices and inequalities.

McKittrick, K., & Woods, C. A. (Eds.). (2007). Black geographies and the politics of place. South End Press.

Bullard, R. D., & Wright, B. (Eds.). (2009). Race, place, and environmental justice after Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to reclaim, rebuild, and revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Westview Press.

The article uses data from sources such as the Aid Worker Security Database, interviews and focus groups. The Aid Worker Security Database, as aforementioned, produces very little data in comparison to how large the problem is suspected to be. 

• "My argument is that while humanitarianism, in conjunction with certain feminist movements, may work to medicalise and depoliticise gender-based violence, the politics of gender actually creep back in undercover, revealing problems at the heart of the humanitarian mission – problems that undermine the very idea of a ‘humanitarian space’ critical to humanitarian action, that is, a space that tries to temporarily hold the political at bay."
• "MSF argued in their essays on the Congo that one reason for not taking rape seriously was that women who had experienced sexual assualt were not ideal subjects of aid; since they could not be easily identified with images of innocence."
• "I argue that the shift to gender-based violence as the exemplary humanitarian problem could not have happened without the prior move to medicalise gender-based violence, and render it a medical condition like all others."

The data is visualized in photos or photosets.

The three quotations that more capture the message of the article are: 

"Regardless of the specific national roadmaps, however, nuclear safety has returned to the international stage with a vengence." - I love the use of 'vengence' because it's such a powerful descriptor.

"Numerous case studieshave documented that meaningfully engaging lay communities in decisions... enable greater vigilence and raise confidence about individual emergency preparedness."

"The real challenge of a disaster involving nuclear facilities lies in how to handle the unexpected, unpredictible, utterly novel, and barely intelligible chain of events unfolding in real time."

Sheri Fink conducted an interview with one of the doctors who worked at the Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans. She also interviewed people affected by the disaster.