Paper short abstract:

Eight years of post-Katrina ethnographic research with a large African American family from St. Bernard Parish suggests a new, culturally informed way to think about resilience in the context of recovery from disaster.

Paper long abstract:

Ethnographic work offers a new frontier for resilience studies in the context of disaster.

In my post-Katrina research with an African American family of 300 people from bayou communities in St. Bernard Parish, I documented the interdependence of the group and the strength and comfort they drew from their cultural system. This system of collective self-reliance had, for generations, provided family members with a way to meet crises. Their system had also buffered them against the shifting terms of racism in their home parish. But after Katrina devastated the entire parish and wrecked the homes of every member of the family, outsiders took control. These authorities brought a recovery culture that disregarded the needs of the wounded, alienating people from their own cultural resources and depriving them of a sense of agency. In this paper, I will draw on data from my eight years of fieldwork to suggest a new, culturally informed way to think about resilience in the context of recovery from disaster.