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

随着飓风过后休斯顿的恢复工作转向未来的规划，州和地方当局正在评估多项建议，以提高该地区对未来风暴和洪水事件的适应能力。一个特别的关注点是如何处理在过去三年中多次发生洪水的社区。一些专家建议扩大收购计划。但是，除非广泛使用征用权驱逐，否则任何此类计划都需要得到居民的同意和参与。这项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，还是搬迁到城市的其他地区，还是完全搬迁到城市以外。他们认为重要的因素是什么？什么样的经历会让他们的决策有所不同？在他们决定是留下来还是离开时，他们信任和使用哪些信息和谁的建议？研究人员表示，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灾经历的关注)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。这项拟议的研究的意义也超出了休斯敦，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有关，还是与“正常”降雨增加有关，或者与海平面上升和下沉有关。拟议中的研究将在受哈维洪水严重影响的两个休斯敦社区进行，分别是格林斯宾特和迈尔兰。甚至在哈维之前，这两个社区就已经跻身于全国洪水保险计划重复发放援助金额最多的三个休斯顿社区之列。尽管这两个社区都容易受到大洪水的影响，但在收入、教育水平、民族和种族、住房存量(出租住宅区与单户业主自住房产)方面，它们在人口统计学上存在许多差异。这种对比增加了拟议的研究将代表整个休斯敦的经济和种族多样性的可能性，同时也使测试冲积意识的概念成为可能，同时控制其他变量。研究小组将由人类学家派、多米尼克·博耶博士、一名博士后研究员和四名本科生组成，分成两个邻里小组。研究人员将使用社会科学方法的混合。研究小组将与区议会办公室、邻里协会、环境正义非政府组织和以信仰为基础的社区合作，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面试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，以更密切地熟悉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具有高度理论生成性的领域提供新的见解：(1)灾害的预测和临时性；(2)基础设施安排及其对社会认同和政治主观性的影响。它还将重点关注长期洪灾这一暂时和基础设施现象。将用在研究过程中收集的数据来检验“冲积意识”的概念。这些发现将使人类学和社会科学更好地掌握新的慢性洪泛区洪灾对情感和认知的影响。这项拟议的研究将为地方政府和城市规划者提供可操作的数据，帮助他们理解沿海地区居民选择留在或离开受长期严重洪灾影响的地区的标准。

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.