RAPID: Recovery, Relocation, and Alluvial Awareness in Post-Hurricane Houston

随着飓风过后休斯顿的灾后恢复工作转向未来规划，州和地方当局正在评估多种方案，以提高该地区对未来风暴和洪水事件的抵御能力。一个特别的焦点是如何处理在过去三年中多次被洪水淹没的社区。一些专家建议扩大买断计划。但是，除了广泛使用土地征用权驱逐之外，任何此类项目都需要居民的同意和参与。拟议的研究旨在调查洪水易发地区的居民如何决定是留下来重建，搬迁到城市的其他地区，还是完全搬迁到城市外。他们认为哪些因素重要？什么样的经历会对他们的决策产生影响？在决定去留时，他们信任哪些信息和谁的建议？研究人员认为，累积的冲积意识（他们将其定义为对过去和未来可能发生的洪水经历的关注）正在增加，这种意识影响着居民对某些社区、社区和城市本身的依恋程度。拟议研究的意义也延伸到休斯顿以外，因为美国各地的沿海社区开始看到新的降雨和洪水模式，无论是与极端降雨事件，“正常”降雨量的增加，还是与海平面上升和下沉有关。拟议的研究将在休斯顿的两个社区进行，这两个社区受到哈维洪水的严重影响，分别是greenpoint和Meyerland。甚至在“哈维”之前，这两个社区就已经被列入休斯顿三个获得国家洪水保险计划重复性援助最多的社区之列。尽管这两个社区都容易遭受大洪水的袭击，但在收入、教育水平、民族和种族、住房存量（租赁住房与单户自有住房）等方面，它们在许多方面都存在人口统计学上的差异。这种对比增加了所提议的研究将代表休斯顿整体经济和种族多样性的可能性，同时也使得在控制其他变量的同时测试冲积意识的概念成为可能。研究小组将由人类学家PI、多米尼克·博耶博士、一名博士后和四名本科生组成，分为两个社区小组。研究人员将采用多种社会科学方法。研究小组将与区议会办事处、社区协会、环境正义非政府组织和信仰社区合作，努力鼓励社区参与调查。他们将选择愿意参加更长时间和更深入的半结构化访谈的个人和家庭的子样本。项目研究小组将寻找志愿者家庭，由参与观察的研究人员跟踪，以便更密切地了解个人和家庭的决策过程。该项目将为当代人类学研究的两个高度理论化的领域提供新的见解：(1)灾害的预测和时间化；(2)基础设施安排及其对社会认同和政治主体性的影响。它还将重点关注慢性洪水，这既是一种时间现象，也是一种基础设施现象。“冲积意识”的概念将用研究过程中收集的数据进行检验。研究结果将使人类学和社会科学更好地掌握洪水对新出现的慢性洪涝区的情感和认知影响。拟议的研究将为当地政府和城市规划者提供可操作的数据，以了解沿海地区各地居民选择留在或离开受慢性严重洪水影响地区的标准。

As post-hurricane recovery efforts in post-Harvey Houston turn toward future planning, state and local authorities are evaluating multiple proposals to increase the area's resilience to future storm and flooding events. A particular focus is what to do about neighborhoods that have flooded multiple times in the past three years. Some experts recommend expanding buyout programs. But short of widespread use of eminent domain eviction, any such program will require consent and participation from residents. The proposed research seeks to investigate how residents of flood-prone areas decide whether to remain and rebuild, relocate to other areas of the city, or relocate outside the city altogether. What factors do they consider important? What experiences make a difference in their decision making? What information and whose recommendations do they trust and use as they reach decisions about whether to remain or leave? The researchers suggest that accumulated alluvial awareness, which they define as attention to past and possible future flooding experiences, is increasing and that this awareness affects how attached residents feel to certain neighborhoods, communities, and the city itself. The significance of the proposed research also extends beyond Houston as coastal communities across the United States are beginning to see new rainfall and flooding patterns, whether associated with extreme rainfall events, the increase of "normal" rainfall, or with sea-level rise and subsidence.The proposed research will take place in two Houston neighborhoods that were severely impacted by Harvey flooding, Greenspoint and Meyerland. Even before Harvey both neighborhoods already counted among the three Houston neighborhoods with the greatest number of repetitive assistance payouts from the National Flood Insurance Program. Although the two neighborhoods share a vulnerability to major flooding, they are in many ways demographically distinct in income, education levels, ethnicity and race, housing stock (rental housing complexes vs. single family owner-occupied property). This contrast increases the probability that the proposed research will be representative of the economic and ethnic diversity of Houston as a whole while also making it possible to test the concept of alluvial awareness while controlling for other variables. The research team will consist of the anthropologist PI, Dr. Dominic Boyer, one postdoctoral fellow, and four undergraduate students, divided into two neighborhood-based teams. The researchers will employ a mix of social science methods. Working together with district council offices, neighborhood associations, environmental justice NGOs and faith-based communities, the research team will work to encourage community participation in a survey. They will select a sub-sample of individuals and families willing to participate in longer and more in depth semi-structured interviews. The project research team will seek volunteer families to be shadowed by researchers involving participant-observation in order to gain more intimate familiarity with individual and family decision-making processes. The project will contribute new insights to two highly theoretically generative areas of contemporary anthropological research: (1) the anticipation and temporalization of disasters; and (2) infrastructural arrangements and their influence on social identification and political subjectivity. It will also focus attention on chronic flooding as both a temporal and infrastructural phenomenon. The concept of "alluvial awareness" will be tested with the data gathered in the course of research. Findings will give anthropology and the social sciences a better grasp on the emotional and epistemic impacts of flooding in newly chronic flood zones. The proposed research will provide actionable data to local government and urban planners in terms of understanding the criteria according to which residents in coastal areas everywhere elect to remain or leave areas affected by chronic severe flooding.