Paper short abstract:

Three years after Hurricane Irma (2017), SXM communities continue to struggle with recovery, attributing this delay to decision-making that favoured non-local interests. This research looks at the power dynamics in the SXM Recovery Plan and their performance on disfavoured groups.

Paper long abstract:

On September 7th, 2017, the Caribbean island of St. Maarten/St. Martin (SXM) experienced an intensely destructive Category 5 hurricane. SXM's recovery from "Irma" has been touted as one of the fastest post-disaster economic recoveries for an island nation on record, however, in post-disaster settings, economic and political power imbalances become increasingly evident.

Local female leaders claim that recovery is far from over for them, and that decisions made by authorities in the SXM Recovery Process were prejudicial and severely impacted the female labor force and the communities in which they live. Three years after Irma, communities away from the tourist eye struggle with social tensions, aggravated by and attributed to unequal treatment of workers and residents (Semple 2019). Initial research leads to power inequalities embedded in both the emergency preparedness and recovery processes, driven by male authorities and economic interests. The political and humanitarian interventions by global powers in Irma's recovery cast aside local leaders, processes, and practices, and operated social and cultural decision frameworks that favoured global actors and international mass tourism interests instead of local resident needs. These actions broke locally understood and accepted rules of behaviour, and denied protection and care sorely needed in a reconstruction environment.

Research on gender and disasters and their power underpinning contributes to the ongoing dialogue around women's economic empowerment in development projects in the Global South. Disaster recovery is as much about rethinking as it is rebuilding.

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