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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 report is an NGO report; MSF has a page for its reports on its website.

News coverage mostly is focused on how its the first college of its kind to offer degrees specifically tailored to homeland security and emergency preparedness, and one article highlighted some of the first to graduate with a minor from the college.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/education/2016/05/15/homeland-security-…

With this data, health care professionals can expect that former inmates would be more likely to have certain diseases (tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis C) and mental illness (drug dependence/ abuse, PTSD, anxiety), and likely didn't get treated while in prison.   

The author is Adriana Petryna, who is an anthropologist and Professor of Anthropology at University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on the "public and private forms of scientific knowledge production, as well as on the role of science and technology in public policy". Her work doesn't specifically focus on emergency response, but more on the political and scientific developments that occur in a country after a disaster.

The methods used to produce the arguments in the article were ethnographic research, interviews with dozens of subjects suffering from epilepsy or similar disorder from several countries, and analysis of the subjects' narratives from psychological and anthropological viewpoints.