This book explores how many issues related to development and governance –including migration, disaster management, environmental justice, peace and security, sustainability, public-private partnerships, and terrorism – impact the practice of social work. It takes a global, comparative approach, reflecting the global context in which social workers now operate.

Legal governance of disaster brings both care and punishment to the upending of daily life of place-based disasters. National states use disasters to reorganize how they govern. The collection in Disaster and Sociolegal Studies, edited by Denver University professor Susan Sterett, considers how law is implicated in disaster. The late modern expectation that states are to care for their population makes it particularly important to point out the limits to care—limits that appear less in the grand rhetoric than in the government reports, case-level decisionmaking, administrative rules, and criminalization that make up governing. These insightful essays feature leading scholars whose perspectives range across disasters around the world. Their findings point to reconsidering what states do in disaster, and how law enables and constrains action. The authors analyze sociological and legal issues surrounding disasters and catastrophic events in their many forms: natural, man-made, environmental, human, local, and global. The project was developed as part of the the Oñati Socio-legal Series supported by the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, and is now presented by Quid Pro Books in the Contemporary Society Series. Digital formats feature quality ebook formatting, active Contents, and linked chapter endnotes and URLs.

In the four years since Hurricane Katrina, volunteers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been instrumental in supporting community efforts to recover and rebuild from the devastation in the Gulf States region. The period also provides a case study of the complex process of human recovery and the resource and policy constraints on NGO involvement in these efforts. Human recovery is the process of rebuilding social and daily routines and support networks that foster physical and mental health and well-being. To capture lessons learned for improving human recovery efforts in future disasters, RAND researchers conducted a facilitated discussion with NGO leaders representing a broad spectrum of organizations in Louisiana. The results of that discussion highlight ongoing challenges facing NGOs in terms of appropriate recovery models and financing, NGO-government coordination, and processes to formalize and operationalize NGO roles and responsibilities. Drawing on these lessons, this paper also offers a series of state and federal policy recommendations and a set of possible future research directions to assess and address barriers to long-term human recovery efforts.

Disasters can cause long-term disruptions to the routines of individuals and communities, placing survivors at risk of developing serious mental health and substance abuse problems. Disaster behavioral health services provide emotional support, help normalize stress reactions, assess recovery options, and encourage healthy coping behaviors. They al

While history has identified a need for improved coordination during emergencies, it has also demonstrated that community volunteers positively impact their neighborhoods during times of crisis. Laying out the rationale and process by which emergency managers, community leaders, and non-governmental aid organizations can effectively collaborate and

Natural disasters in recent years have brought the study of disaster resiliency to the forefront. The importance of community preparedness and sustainability has been underscored by such calamities as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Japanese tsunami in 2011. Natural disasters will inevitably continue to occur, but by understanding the concept of resiliency as well as the factors that lead to it, communities can minimize their vulnerabilities and increase their resilience. In this volume, editors Naim Kapucu, Christopher V. Hawkins, and Fernando I. Rivera gather an impressive array of scholars to provide a much needed re-think to the topic disaster resiliency. Previous research on the subject has mainly focused on case studies, but this book offers a more systematic and empirical assessment of resiliency, while at the same time delving into new areas of exploration, including vulnerabilities of mobile home parks, the importance of asset mapping, and the differences between rural and urban locations. Employing a variety of statistical techniques and applying these to disasters in the United States and worldwide, this book examines resiliency through comparative methods which examine public management and policy, community planning and development, and, on the individual level, the ways in which culture, socio-economic status, and social networks contribute to resiliency. The analyses drawn will lead to the development of strategies for community preparation, response, and recovery to natural disasters. Combining the concept of resiliency, the factors that most account for the resiliency of communities, and the various policies and government operations that can be developed to increase the sustainability of communities in face of disasters, the editors and contributors have assembled an essential resource to scholars in emergency planning, management, and policy, as well as upper-level students studying disaster management and policy.

Neither government programs nor massive charitable efforts responded adequately to the human crisis that was Hurricane Katrina. In this study, the authors use extensive interviews with Katrina evacuees and reports from service providers to identify what helped or hindered the reestablishment of the lives of hurricane survivors who relocated to Austin, Texas. Drawing on social capital and social network theory, the authors assess the complementary, and often conflicting, roles of FEMA, other governmental agencies and a range of non-governmental organizations in addressing survivors' short- and longer-term needs. While these organizations came together to assist with immediate emergency needs, even collectively they could not deal with survivors' long-term needs for employment, affordable housing and personal records necessary to rebuild lives. Community Lost provides empirical evidence that civil society organizations cannot substitute for an efficient and benevolent state, which is necessary for society to function.

Fire, flood, earthquake, famine, pestilence, and warfare are no strangers to our experience. Once, we sought to placate the gods who brought these evils upon us. Today, clinicians, engineers, and politicians replace priests, prophets, seers, and shamans, and we_Americans in particular_think to impose our will upon the world. In times of catastrophe, issues of good and evil surrender to rapid, nearly automatic, operational response. Yet the catastrophic event poses unavoidable moral choices, ones that are more politically and emotionally complex since 9/11 and our 'War on Terrorism.' This book benefits from the emergence of bioethics as it has evolved from its clinical roots to address policy, politics, and social practice far removed from that origin. At the same time, the clinical focus on narratives and cases provides a tangible center for ethical reflection. It reminds us that ethics is about persons and their choices, a perspective often lost to abstraction when ethics is left to the ministrations of academe. By treating the catastrophic event as both a category and a genre, Bioethics connects to aesthetics and so enables us to enrich ethical inquiry by ranging from pandemic, hurricane, and flood to terrorist attack.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) on the United States prompted a rethinking of how the United States prepares for disasters. Federal policy documents written since 9/11 have stressed that the private and public sectors share equal responsibility for the security of the nation's critical infrastructure and key assets. Private sector entities have a role in the safety, security, and resilience of the communities in which they operate. Incentivizing the private sector to expend resources on community efforts remains challenging. Disasters in the United States since 9/11 (e.g., Hurricane Katrina in 2005) indicate that the nation has not yet been successful in making its communities resilient to disaster. In this book, the National Research Council assesses the current states of the art and practice in private-public sector collaboration dedicated to strengthening community disaster resilience.