Doctoral Dissertation Research: Community Rebuilding after Disaster

在战争和极端天气事件等灾难发生后，受损或被摧毁的社区如何自我重建？破坏的程度重要吗？一个完全被摧毁的社区是否能以同样的方式和同样成功地重建？该奖项支持的研究通过对灾后社区重建的民族志研究来解决这些问题。研究人员通过审视重建一个地方意味着什么来回答这个问题，不仅仅是作为一个物理位置，而是作为一个人们可以再次感到宾至如归的场所。在美国各地发生的多次灾难使人们流离失所，破坏了社区之后，人们问他们是否可以返回，他们是否应该返回，是否确实有一个社区可以返回。至关重要的是，政策制定者和社会科学家应该更好地理解，怎样才能让人们的生活恢复正常，不仅是作为家庭，而且是作为社区。这项研究将由肯塔基大学人类学博士生Pathmanesan Sanmugeswaran进行，他的导师是Mark Whitaker博士。本研究采用比较设计的方法。这名科学家已经确定了斯里兰卡的两个灾后社区。一个社区被完全摧毁，居民在26年后返回重建，另一个社区遭到破坏，社会混乱，但仍然完好无损。在其他类似的社会文化和地理环境背景下，这种对比提供了一个科学上有用的和罕见的实验机会，这在美国是无法获得的，尽管结果将推广到许多其他环境。数据将通过半结构化访谈、参与者观察和文化绘图来收集。抽样的结构将代表全范围的社会文化差异，包括种姓、性别和年龄。将特别注意如何在两种截然不同的灾后情况下重塑以社区和宗教思想结合为中心的传统社区观念。

How do damaged or destroyed communities rebuild themselves after disasters, such as war and extreme weather events? Does the extent of destruction matter? Does a totally destroyed community rebuild in the same way and as successfully as a less extensively damaged one? The research supported by this award addresses these questions through an ethnographic study of post-disaster community rebuilding. The researcher takes up the questions by looking at the what it means to reconstitute a place, not just as a physical location but as site where people can once again feel at home. In the wake of multiple disasters that have torn people from their homes and damaged communities throughout the United States, people are asking if they can return, if they should return, if indeed there is a community to return to. It is critical that policy makers and social scientists better understand what it will take to put people's lives back together, not just as households but also as communities. The research will be carried out by University of Kentucky anthropology doctoral student, Pathmanesan Sanmugeswaran, who is supervised by Dr. Mark Whitaker. The research takes a comparative design approach. The researcher has identified two post-disaster communities in Sri Lanka. One community was totally destroyed and the inhabitants are returning to rebuild after 26 years, and the other was physically damaged and social disrupted but nonetheless remained intact. This contrast in an otherwise similar socio-cultural and geographic environmental context provides a scientifically useful and rare experimental opportunity that would not be available in the United States, although the results will be generalizable to many other contexts. Data will be gathered through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and cultural mapping. Sampling will be structured to represent the full range of socio-cultural variation, including caste, gender, and age. Particular attention will be paid to how traditional notions of community, which centered around combined ideas of community and religion, are remade in the two contrasting post-disaster situations.