Louisiana after the hurricanes
The catastrophe wrought by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Louisiana and Mississippi is affecting us dearly. Many members of our Center have professional ties and close friendships there, and particularly in New-Orleans and Tulane University. And, more simply, we just love this part of America.
Beyond emotion, we are preparing a workshop, to take place in early 2006, to help use the tools of social sciences to shed light on the events that took place in Louisiana, and hope to be able to have colleagues from Louisiana take part. Sara Le Menestrel is in charge of this project.
François Weil, directeur de l'UMR 8130
research project on Katrina |
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Sara Le Menestrel takes part to a collective research at the Sociology and Anthropology Department of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette on "Return or resettle: Analysis of the Decision Process by People Displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita". This project aims at collecting and analyzing data on the factors at play
in the decision process by current evacuees to return or to resettle. Is
it a question of infrastructure, jobs, education, housing, maintenance of
social networks, community life, fear of future catastrophic event, hope
to start anew, extent of trauma, etc? Will middle-class homeowners
proceed differently from middle-class renters, poor Section 8 residents?
Will musicians be more likely to return than shop owners or school
workers? How will members of minority groups think and act about the
return compared to whites, Hispanic or Vietnamese immigrants?
Four objectives are pursued:
- gain knowledge of the ongoing process in order to factor in the input of the people concerned into the rebuilding effort;
- to bridge the disconnect between plans and actions by authorities at all levels, and expectations and actions by citizens;
- track changes in the assessments and decisions by evacuees between the short term and long term;
- develop a model to inform future actions by public and private entities on the issue of rebuilding in the aftermath of a disaster.
a few links |
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You will find below a few links to news articles and other various sources to help bring together the elements of an analysis of what happened in Louisiana. This page, under the direction of Sara Le Menestrel, will be updated regularly.
- The website of Tulane University will keep you posted on the situation on this campus where several members of the CENA have many ties.
- The 2002 series of articles in the Times-Picayune on the foreseen disaster a hurricane could inflict on Louisiana.
- An article from the New York Times on the rumors of rape, plunder and assault, most of them disproved today. [local copy]
- An article of The Nation on the activist groups that organize to give a voice to the poorest citizens of New-Orleans on the reconstruction of their neighborhoods.
- An article by a University of New Orleans researcher announcing in details, a year before, the disaster that a hurricane such as Katrina would wring to the city.