Displaced by Disaster

Recovery and Resilience in a Globalizing World

Ann-Margaret Esnard, Alka Sapat

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781135006426
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Displacement has traditionally been conceptualized as a phenomenon that results from conflict or other disruptions in developing or unstable countries. Hurricane Katrina shattered this notion and highlighted the various dilemmas of population displacement in the United States. The dilemmas stem from that of inconsistent terminology and definitions; lack of efforts to quantify displacement risk potential and that factor displacement vulnerability into community plans; lack of understanding of differential needs of "displacees" especially during long-term recovery periods; and policy and institutional responses (or lack thereof) especially as it relates to post-disaster sheltering and housing.

Incorporating relevant examples, cases, and policies Esnard and Sapat look at the experience of other countries and how the international community has dealt with hundreds of thousands of individuals who have been forced to leave their homes. Displaced by Disaster addresses such issues from a planning and policy perspective informed by scholarship in disciplines such as emergency management; political science; sociology and anthropology. It is ideal for students and practitioners working in the areas of disaster management, planning, public administration and policy, housing, and the many disciplines connected to disaster issues.

1
Introduction

The risk of displacement is expected to rise in line with related and interconnected global trends that increase the risk of disaster.

(IDMC, 2013: 8)

Displacement is traditionally conceptualized as the forced removal of a person from his or her home or country due to conflict, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in developing or politically unstable countries (Belcher & Bates, 1983; International Organization for Migration, 2004), or that which is induced by construction and development projects such as dams, ports, highways, and industrial complexes (Feldman, Geisler, & Siberling, 2003; Gellert & Lynch, 2003; Oliver-Smith, 2009a). Displacement can also result from maladies such as hunger, disease, and drought (Auvinen & Nafziger, 1999; Azam, Arqade, & Hoeffler, 2002; Toole, 1995; El Tigani, 1995; Pedersen, 2002; Wilhite & Easterling, 2004), and from natural or manufactured disasters (Fordham, 2007; Smith & Wenger, 2006). The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s (IDMC) report, “Global Estimates 2012: People Displaced by Disasters” estimated that during the period 2008–2012, 144 million people in 125 countries were forced from their homes, and that 32.4 million people in 82 countries were displaced by natural disasters in 2012 (IDMC, 2013: 6). A comparison of displacement by weather/climate-related hazards versus geophysical hazards showed that 98% of this displacement in 2012 was due to weather-related hazards like floods, storms, and wildfires (IDMC, 2013: 35).

These statistics raise questions about trends but also about the nature (voluntary versus forced), geography (internal or transnational), and human rights implications of displacement. Our research for this book (see case studies in Chapter 8) suggests that the vast majority of people displaced by disasters (both natural and human-made) are internally displaced, but may not be categorized or referred to as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).¹ The term IDP has been contentious given complicating and lingering issues such as sovereignty, legal frameworks, institutional arrangements, and strategies to protect people under assault in their own countries. Terminology used for people displaced after disaster is highly variable, ranging from “evacuee” to “Internally Displaced Persons,” and these definitions remain imprecise (Mitchell, Esnard, & Sapat, 2012). The problems that can arise from the lack of consistent terminology and definitions are discussed in detail in Chapter 2. The non-voluntary nature of the movement, and resettlement in host communities and countries, is also central to the definition of displacement. It includes people forced from their homes or evacuated in order to avoid the effects or a threat of disaster. It does not matter how far people are forced to move. Displacement may include situations where people are rendered homeless or deprived of their livelihoods, but remain in place or close to their original dwellings, whether through choice or because they have no alternative access to shelter and assistance (IDMC, 2013: 10). The concept of in situ displacement (Feldman et al., 2003) is worth noting here. In situ displacement refers to displacement experienced by people while staying in place, where people find themselves in a new position in the social hierarchy. In situ displacement depends on relations of exclusion that set new boundaries for people’s physical and social movement (Feldman et al., 2003: 9).

While natural disasters, especially those in the United States, result primarily in voluntary displacement, there are some potential lessons that can be drawn from scholarship on the household and community impacts of displacement forced by construction and mega-development projects. We should offer the qualifying statement that some of these initiatives and projects may be indisputably necessary, with benefits that outweigh the costs. However, the literature suggests the need to pay attention to potential secondary crises (Oliver, 2011), or what Oliver-Smith (2009b: 3) described as “development disasters.” For example, the Three Gorges Dam mega-project located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China took almost twenty years of construction, and displaced more than 1.2 million people. According to Hugo (2008), many of those forcibly relocated have suffered significant losses despite government assistance. Lewis and Kelman (2013: 10) provided an example of the Philippines, where government development projects—dams, irrigation, mining operations, plantations, recreation areas, and so on—are locally viewed as more disastrous than natural hazards. The projects required conversion of prime agricultural land to industrial and commercial use. Local communities were often not consulted but were displaced, losing their rights, livelihoods, and land. Research from a study of flood-induced resettlement in Mozambique found, among other things, that “the resettlers’ ability to adjust to their new surroundings depended on the availability of natural resources, local options for livelihood diversification, and the presence of external investment by development agencies” (Arnall, Thomas, Twyman, and Liverman, 2013: 485). Scholars like Cernea (1997: 1569) have advocated for the protection and reconstruction of displaced peoples’ livelihoods as a central requirement for equitable and socially responsible resettlement programs, and identified the key interdependent and synergistic risks and impoverishment processes in displacement as: (a) landlessness; (b) joblessness; (c) homelessness; (d) marginalization; (e) food insecurity; (f) loss of access to common property resources; (g) increased morbidity; and (h) community disarticulation. What seems clear, at least from our perspective, is that societal, community, and household impacts of displacement (whether forced or voluntary, internal or transnational) are deserving of ongoing study through multiple lenses and perspectives.

1.1 What Lies Ahead

A wide range of rapid-onset disasters such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires can produce large-scale destruction and displacement (see case studies in Chapter 8), and climate change will amplify future displacement by increasing the scale and frequency of both gradual- and rapid-onset events (e.g., chronic drought and sea-level rise). In 2009, Monbiot (2009, online) blogged that “climate change displacement has begun—but hardly anyone has noticed.” However, climate change is significant for Carteret Islanders of Papua New Guinea, who have been reported as the first “climate refugees.” The news of the Carteret Islanders might have slipped under the radar given the relatively small number of displaced persons. The entire community of 2600 people had to relocate to new sites to escape sea level rise and other effects of climate change on their homeland. The designation as the “first” is open to discussion, but Monbiot (2009, online) warned that “this is the event that foreshadows the likely mass displacement of people from coastal cities and low-lying regions as a result of rising sea levels.” The potential for “climate refugees” from impacted small island states, Latin America, Africa, and Asia is real. Countries like Bangladesh, for example, are on the radar as having the potential to “surpass all known refugee crises in terms of the number of people affected” (Biermann & Boas, 2010: 61).

In the United States, we find evidence from native tribes such as the Biloxi-Chitimacha, who are forced to abandon their ancestral Louisiana homes due to disappearing lands from repetitive flooding and rising sea levels. Sturgis (2009) drew our attention to the inherent dispersion and eventual loss of the cultural integrity of that tribe. Similarly, families living in the Grand Bayou in Louisiana (home to a small population of indigenous shrimp fishermen and women who have survived 15,000 years in the marshlands, and who are spiritually tied to the land) were displaced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (in August 2005). There was complete destruction of their village structures. Tropical Storm Isaac (August of 2012) once again brought destruction upon the homes and livelihoods of those families who returned “from the Katrina-imposed diaspora” (Nienaber, 2012).

Biermann and Boas have been advocating for a global protocol to protect climate refugees, stating that “the protection of climate refugees is essentially a development issue that requires large-scale, long-term planned resettlement programs for groups of affected people, mostly within their countries (Biermann & Boas, 2008: 11; Biermann & Boas, 2010). Gibb and Ford (2012) add that “climate migrants” do not have any official protection under international law, and that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the most relevant international framework for addressing this gap. Mooney (2001) has argued that human rights law provides the fundamental basis for addressing the plight of internally displaced persons remaining within the territory of their state when refugee law does not apply. In Chapter 2, we discuss how the very use of the terms “climate refugee” and “climate migrant” is filled with contention. Several terms and designations are used interchangeably (e.g., “eco-refugee,” “climate change refugees,” “environmental refugee,” “climate evacuees,” “climate migrants,” “disaster refugee,” “environmental migrants,” “environmental displacee,” “environmentally displaced persons,” environmental-refugee-to-be (ERTB),” or “forced climate migrants”), but convey implicit expectations for service and protection. Given the potential for an increase in the number of this subset of displaced persons, existing institutions and organizations are not prepared to deal with what lies ahead (Biermann & Boas, 2008; 2010).

1.2 Genesis of Book

The population displacement phenomenon (and related impacts and dilemmas) cannot be neatly placed as a topic of study for one specific discipline or profession. The need exists for a holistic approach, one that is multidisciplinary, multi-hazard, and multi-scalar (i.e., household, community, region, country, global). We use natural disasters as the lens through which to examine a number of displacement dilemmas—factors that contribute to displacement vulnerability (i.e., preexisting human, societal, and institutional vulnerabilities); the differential needs of displaced persons, especially during long-term recovery periods; and, societal and institutional responses (or lack thereof), especially as they relate to post-disaster sheltering and housing. The book addresses such issues with an eye toward informing research and practice. Our insights are largely influenced by three research projects funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Infrastructure Management and Extreme Events in the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI):

• Displacement Due to Catastrophic Hurricanes: Assessing Potential Magnitude and Policy Implications for Housing and Land Development (NSF Grant No. CMMI-0726808).
• Haitian-Americans as Critical Bridges and Lifelines for Long-Term Recovery in Haiti (NSF Grant No. CMMI-1034667).
• Diaspora Advocacy Coalitions and Networks: A Focus on Haiti’s Disasters (NSF Grant No. CMMI-1162438).

These funded research initiatives spawned peer-reviewed journal publications on topics that include disaster-induced population displacement and long-term recovery. We use sections of some of these articles and other publications, as permitted by the journals:

• Levine, J., Esnard, A-M., & Sapat, A. (2007). Population displacement and housing dilemmas due to catastrophic hurricanes. Journal of Planning Literature, 22 (1), 3–15.
• Welsh, M. G., & Esnard, A-M. (2009). Closing gaps in local housing recovery planning for disadvantaged displaced households. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, 11 (3), 87–104.
• Esnard, A-M., Sapat, A., & Mitsova, D. (2011). An index of relative displacement risk to hurricanes. Natural Hazards, 59 (2), 833–859.
• Esnard, A-M., & Sapat, A. (2011). Disasters, diasporas and host communities: Insights in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. Journal of Disaster Research, 6 (3), 331–342.
• Sapat, A., Mitchell, C. M., Li, Y., & Esnard, A-M. (2011). Policy learning: Katrina, Ike and post-disaster housing. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 29 (1), 26–56.
• Mitchell, C. M., Esnard, A-M., & Sapat, A. (2012). Hurricane events and the displacement process in the United States. Natural Hazards Review, 13, 150–161.
• Sapat, A., & Esnard, A-M. (2012). Displacement and disaster recovery: Transnational governance and sociolegal issues following the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy, 3 (1), Article 2.
• Sapat, A., & Esnard, A-M. (2012). Transboundary impacts of the 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster: Focus on legal dilemmas in South Florida. Oñati Socio-legal Series [online], 3 (2), 254–276.
• Sapat, A., & Esnard, A-M. (2013). Impacts of the 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster: Focus on legal dilemmas in South Florida. In S. Sterett (Ed.), Disaster and sociolegal studies (pp. 109–136). New Orleans, LA: Quid Pro Books Contemporary Society Series.
• Sapat, A., & Esnard, A-M. (2013). Disaster planning and policies. Course prepared for FEMA Higher Education Program. Emmitsburg, MD: Emergency Management Institute.

1.3 Book Content

Part 1, “Setting the Stage: Why Displacement Matters,” includes Chapters 2, 3, and 4, and provides the global and historical context for why addressing displacement matters. Chapter 2, “Concepts and Terminology,” discusses important differences between terms used to define (i) the scale of the event (e.g., crisis, disaster, catastrophe); (ii) the “evacuation continuum” (e.g., voluntary and involuntary evacuation, migration, and displacement); and (iii) displaced person (e.g., migrant, refugee, internally displaced person). The chapter includes a compilation of terms and definitions from a wid...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of Acronyms
• 1 Introduction
• Part 1: Setting the Stage: Why Displacement Matters
• Part 2: Focus on the United States
• Part 3: Displacement, Recovery, and Resilience in the Global Community
• Appendices
• Index