RAPID: The Tohoku Catastrophe: Volunteers and Non-Profit Organizations in Post-Kobe Japan

这项快速反应研究基金（Rapid）为探索灾难后志愿者团体和组织的出现和依赖提供资金。2011年3月11日，日本经历了一场灾难——里氏9.0级大地震；近海岸的海啸高达10米，在不到30分钟的时间内到达海岸，在一些地方向内陆移动了4英里；一个地点的六个反应堆发生核紧急情况，向空气、土地和水中释放大量辐射。这些事件导致了搜救工作的困难和延误，预警时间极短，50多万人的疏散和庇护，阻止核电站反应堆堆芯和乏燃料棒融化的英勇努力，以及向公众通报风险的混乱。鉴于日本东北地震的巨大破坏，以及在所有应对阶段都需要明显的创造性，有人会认为，在应对灾难性事件时，需要一个完全不同的框架。该RAPID项目将调查该框架的一个组成部分- -志愿者团体和组织的出现和依赖。此外，由于恢复过程可能长达多年，而且非常不确定，志愿者和非营利组织可能会在很长一段时间内继续大量参与各种能力。RAPID计划将解决灾难中志愿者的一个主要问题和相关问题：志愿者如何与其他被认为更成熟或“官方”的组织合作、协调和分享信息？在灾难性的环境中，什么条件有利于不同类型的协调？当正式的反应系统不堪重负，要处理构成灾难的众多附属危机时，志愿者承担什么功能？应急管理人员和其他政府官员指望研究界提供应对灾害和灾难的指导。这个项目的数据收集方法包括观察志愿人员工作的实地地点；正式、半正式和非结构化面试；以及对原始文献和媒体报道的分析。研究小组将强调收集短暂的数据，即有关机构和组织的数据，这些数据在时间流逝后可能不复存在。主要的分析方法将是扎根理论传统中的归纳定性分析，其中科学理论是在分析，理论构建和理论完善的重复过程中建立的。这项研究的结果将构成新理论的基础，这些理论将对建立灾难和灾难响应组织的用户社区有意义。由于研究结果将建立在组织理论的基础上，预计研究结果将在私营部门环境中有用，在快速变化、模糊和政治竞争的环境中建立组织是一个主要挑战，特别是在国际和跨文化应用中。

This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) provides funding to explore the emergence and reliance on volunteer groups and organizations following a catastrophe. On March 11, 2011, the nation of Japan experienced a catastrophe - a great earthquake of M9.0; a near-shore tsunami, 10 meters high, that reached the coast in less than 30 minutes and traveled inland four miles in some locations; and a nuclear emergency in six reactors on one site, releasing significant amounts of radiation into the air, land, and water. These events resulted in difficult and delayed search and rescue efforts, extremely short warning periods, evacuation and sheltering of over 500,000 people, heroic efforts to stop the melting of cores and spent fuel rods at nuclear power plant reactors, and confusion in risk communication to the public. Given the enormity of the Tohoku destruction and the evident inventiveness that was required at all stages of response, it will be argued that an entirely different framework is needed in responding to catastrophic events. This RAPID project will investigate one of the components of that framework - the emergence and reliance on volunteer groups and organizations. Moreover, with what is likely to be a many-years-long and very uncertain process of recovery, volunteers and non-profit organizations are likely to continue to be heavily involved in a variety of capacities over a long period of time. This RAPID project will tackle a principal question and related concerns regarding volunteers in catastrophes: how do volunteers (or do they) work with, coordinate with, and share information with other organizations that are deemed to be more established or "official" as well as with each other? What conditions facilitate different kinds of coordination in a catastrophic milieu? What functions do volunteers undertake when formal response systems are overwhelmed and dealing with the multitude of subsidiary crises that comprise a catastrophe? Emergency managers and other public officials look to the research community for guidance on responding to disaster and catastrophe. Data-gathering methods for this project include observation of field sites where volunteers are working; formal, semi-formal, and unstructured interviews; and analysis of primary documents as well as media reports. The research team will emphasize gathering of ephemeral data: that is, data about agencies and organizations that may not exist after the passage of time. The main analytical approach will be inductive qualitative analysis in the grounded theory tradition, where scientific theories are built in a repeated process of analysis, theory-building, and theory refinement.Findings from this study will form the basis for new theories that will make sense to the user community in building disaster and catastrophe response organizations. Because the findings will build on organization theory, it is anticipated that the findings will be useful in private sector settings, where building organizations in quickly-changing, ambiguous, and politically contested environments is a main challenge, especially in international and cross-cultural applications.