Doctoral Dissertation Research: Race, Class and Social Capital in Devastated Neighborhoods

本文对飓风桑迪过后纽约市的两个灾后社区进行了创新性的多方法定性实地研究。虽然这些社区同样受到自然灾害的影响，并通过大型非政府组织和联邦紧急事务管理局获得类似类型的援助，但这些社区的种族和经济特征却大不相同。研究人员将研究社会过程，通过种族和阶级塑造居民是否以及如何与灾难响应者建立密切和非正式的联系。这项研究特别关注关系形成的类型和质量如何影响非官方灾难支持和信息的共享。在这种环境中，关注这些新形成的联系尤为重要，因为人们通常的社会关系受到严重损害。本研究采用了网络资源理论，即社会资本理论，该理论认为通过这些人际关系可以非正式地、间接地获得信息或资源形式的帮助，并且在这个过程中，一个人的人际关系的社会地位及其关系的质量是重要的。联合调查团将在救灾和取暖中心以及邻近的两个城市社区的受灾地区进行实地调查。从飓风发生后10天开始，在接下来的几个月里，研究者对现场进行了8次访问，采访了120名参与者，包括受影响的居民、当地社区、外地救援人员和志愿者。本项目的数据收集方式有三种：(1)深度非结构化访谈，(2)半结构化随访访谈，(3)民族志参与者观察。这些都得到了物质文化的书面证据的证实，包括救灾地点的毁坏录像和照片、标志、传单和其他印刷信息材料。通过访谈和观察，本研究将探讨跨种族和跨阶级的互动，以及社区种族和阶级的动态，如何影响居民接受灾难支持的程度和种类。观察和调查将用于首先确定，然后解释以下关系：(1)受影响居民与灾难响应者和志愿者之间建立的关系的类型和强度；(2)通过这些连接共享的灾害相关信息和资源的类型；(3)居民和志愿者对话、叙述和互动的种族和阶级内容；(4)构成人际关系和居民参与的地方灾害应对方面。最终，该项目有助于社会学研究的四个领域：社会资本理论，种族关系，贫困和灾难研究。该研究的独特设计允许区分连接社会资本整个过程的机制，以确定在灾难的非常规背景下，社会资本不平等发生在哪个阶段（创造，获取，激活和回报）。这一研究重点不同于目前的传统研究，后者探索的是在求职等日常环境中该过程的一条腿（例如激活）。该研究还讨论了一个关键的实质性辩论，即城市贫困黑人和其他少数民族是如何最终进入“错误的网络”的，无论是通过选择还是机会。或者像这里探讨的那样，这种现象在多大程度上是一个网络层面的过程？更广泛的影响：除了在常规背景之外研究社会资本和社会不平等的理论贡献之外，这项研究还具有巨大的社会意义，因为它告诉实践者，在遭受破坏的社区中，“网络”的跨种族和跨阶级动态以及获取可用资源的后果。该项目还将使少数族裔女性定性研究人员能够建立和组织大量定性数据集，并在非常规背景下启动关于不同人群中种族-民族社会资本不平等的独立研究议程。定性数据集将用于培训本科生和研究生的定性分析方法，种族和阶级不平等，以及灾害对弱势群体的影响。该项目的研究结果将发表在同行评议的期刊上，并在学术和公共会议上发表。从这个项目中获得的见解，也将刺激类似的分析扩展到其他种族和社会经济多样化的环境。

SES- 1434602Nan Lin, NanSancha MedwinterDuke UniversityThis dissertation research is an innovative multi-method qualitative field study of two post-disaster neighborhoods in New York City, after Hurricane Sandy. Although these neighborhoods are similarly impacted by a natural disaster and receive similar types of aid through a large NGO (non-governmental organizations) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), the racial and economic characteristics of these neighborhoods are quite different. The researcher will examine the social processes through which race and class shape whether and how residents strike close and informal connections with disaster responders. The research in particular focuses on how the type and quality of relationships formed, affects sharing of non-official disaster support and information. This focus on these newly formed connections is particularly important in this environment, where people's usual social connections were severely compromised. The research adopts a theory of network resources, social capital, which expects that assistance in the form of information or resources are informally and indirectly accessed through these interpersonal connections and that social position of one's connections and the quality of their relationship matter in this process. The co-PI will conduct fieldwork in disaster relief and warming centers and surrounding devastated areas of two urban neighborhoods that are proximate to each other. Beginning only ten days after the hurricane and through 8 subsequent visits to the field site over the course of several months, the researcher interviewed 120 participants, including impacted residents, local community and out-of-town responders and volunteers. The data for this project is collected in three ways: (1) in-depth unstructured interviews, (2) semi-structured follow-up interviews, (3) and ethnographic participant observation. These are substantiated with documentary evidence of material culture including video and photographs of devastation, signs, flyers, and other print informational materials at relief sites. Through interviews and observations, the research will examine how cross-race and cross-class interactions, and community racial and class dynamics, impact the extent and kind of disaster support residents receive. Observations and inquiry will be used to first identify, then explain the relationships among (1) the types and strength of relationships forged among impacted-residents and disaster responders and volunteers; (2) the types of disaster-related information and resources shared across these connections; (3) the racial and class content of resident and volunteer conversations, accounts and interactions and (4) the aspects of local disaster response that structure interpersonal relations and resident participation.Ultimately, the project contributes to four fields of sociological research: social capital theory, race relations, poverty, and disaster research. The unique design of the study allows for distinguishing the mechanisms linking the entire process of social capital to pinpoint at what stage (creation, access, activation and returns) social capital inequality occurs in the non-routine context of disaster. This emphasis differs from current research in this tradition, which explores one leg (e.g. activation) of the process in routine contexts such as job-finding. The research also addresses a key substantive debate on how urban poor Blacks and other minorities end up in the "wrong networks" whether it is through choice or opportunity. Or as explored here, to what extent is this phenomenon a network level process?Broader Impacts: Beyond its theoretical contribution of examining social capital and social inequality outside routine contexts, this research has tremendous social significance as it informs practitioners of the interracial and inter-class dynamics of "networking" in devastated neighborhoods and the consequence for accessing available resources. This project will also enable a minority female qualitative researcher to establish and organize a substantial qualitative dataset and launch an independent-research agenda on racial-ethnic social capital inequalities within diverse populations in non-routine contexts. The qualitative dataset, will be used to train both undergraduate and graduate students in qualitative analytical methods, race and class inequalities, and the consequence of disasters for vulnerable populations. Findings from this project will be published in peer reviewed journals, and presented at academic and public conferences. The insights gained from this project, will also spur extension of similar analyses to other environments that are racially and socioeconomically diverse.