On My Desk: Critical and Decolonial Perspectives on Contemporary Disaster Resilience

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Grant Rissler
November 1, 2024

The newest issue of Administrative Theory & Praxis includes an article by Andrew Russo and Christine da Rosa, both at Portland State University, that reviews recent discourse on disaster resilience as a goal and highlights how resilience is too often understood and constructed in a way that privileges existing power structures. Also, how critical and decolonial perspectives point out possible dangers of continued harm that could persist even with well-intentioned efforts to increase inclusivity in improving disaster resilience in marginalized communities.  

The damage and loss of life from recent natural disasters in the Unites States, including hurricanes Helene and Milton, highlight the challenges of climate change and emergency preparedness in myriad ways. Alongside these challenges exist innovations, both technological and social, that attempt to increase the resilience of communities when they face disasters (whether natural or human created). 

The technological innovations can make a huge difference in how fast aid can reach affected individuals.  As noted in a recent AP news story by Gabriela Aoun Angueira, the nonprofit organization GiveDirectly is using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to identify geographic areas with both high damage and high poverty, identifying existing users of an electronic benefits transfer app, Propel, that is used by around 20 percent of the population already enrolled in the federal Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program, then contacting those Propel users to let them know they are eligible for a direct grant of $1,000 from the nonprofit. If individuals indicate that they want to apply for the grant, they can do so quickly through the app and receive the money directly through Propel in a matter of hours or days.

At the same time, such well-intentioned innovations also inherently exclude some parts of affected communities. As the story notes, “focusing on areas with lots of damaged buildings won’t pick up all low-income households devastated by a disaster. Nor will reaching out to those already signed up for government benefits, as not all poor people enroll in them, and undocumented residents aren’t eligible for them. People without smartphones can’t access the app. Propel serves only 5 million of the 22 million households enrolled in SNAP benefits.” The article also notes that such app dependent tools require at least a charged phone and a working cellular network, which, according to a recent article by Chuanyi Ji (Georgia Tech) and Scott Ganz (Georgetown), can be a challenge as poor communities often wait longest to see power restored. (The map shown here, one of two they include in their article based on prior research, shows the difference in response times once socioeconomic status is factored in.)

These types of tradeoffs related to a technological innovation are worth thinking about at multiple levels.  Social equity scholars within Public Administration, like Susan Gooden in her book Race and Social Equity, articulated the need more than a decade ago for awareness of how any policy, process or technological innovation impact the four key dimensions of social equity—access, quality, process and outcomes. These dimensions provide important insight because each, from a managerial perspective, is arguably measurable.   

At the same time these tradeoffs also need to be considered at a deeper levels, both systemic (the way that institutional and societal practices and conceptual frames shape access, process, etc.) and epistemic (the way that accepted ways of knowing and establishing “truth” shape each dimension listed above). A recent article in Administrative Theory & Praxis by Andrew Russo and Christine da Rosa, both at Portland State University, is helpful in pushing public administration and emergency preparedness scholars to consider this deeper level as it reviews recent discourse among those using critical and decolonizing perspectives to analyze efforts to improve disaster resilience. 

Insights from a review of critical and decolonial perspectives on disaster resilience

In their article, the authors draw on multiple perspectives that approach the discourse around disaster resilience and converge toward several insights. First, like many other facets of societal change, though the dominant discourses in disaster responses are assumed to reach for universal insights and to be value neutral, they often operate, intentionally or not, out of broader neoliberal frame that looks for market-based and technological solutions first. The focus on use of existing tech platforms and a goal of a rapid response time in the innovation highlighted at the start of this column is an example of this neoliberal-adjacent frame of reference.  This preference, Russo and da Rosa argue, privileges and prioritizes Anglo-European perspectives over indigenous or other communities oppressed by colonial and white supremacist institutions down through history. This awareness yields several insights (summarized by the authors in Table 1 from their article) and directions that theorists and practitioners can utilize to move toward a more inclusive disaster resilience discourse and on the ground efforts. 

What I found most insightful about this article, however, is the way that the authors also elevate several concerns found within the literature they review about potential pitfalls for those who are working to implement these insights in efforts to move toward a more inclusive discourse. For example, a focus on greater inclusion of a wider range of stakeholders may lead to a small number of members of “made-vulnerable” communities being included in resilience discussions, but runs the risk of tokenism, which may distract from additional systemic and epistemic work that needs to be done to work toward justice, or it may retraumatize communities when such voices are invited but expected to accept the dominant discourse in order to be heard. In summary, they argue on page 336 that “though there have been increased efforts in disaster resilience practices to include made-vulnerable communities, scholars in our sample argue that inclusion is not enough to challenge re-subjugation in resilience practice at its philosophical core. To break cycles of subjugation in disaster work requires acknowledgement of systematic harm, elevation of subjugated knowledge that embraces epistemic pluralism, and moving toward liberative, healing practices in disaster-struck or at-risk communities.”

Relevance to Public Administrators      

Public administrators, whether in relation to disaster risk, public health emergencies or economic downturns, are often key stewards of a community’s resilience and key conveners of conversations on how to improve resilience. Increasingly, public administrators are conscious of the need to incorporate equity as a pillar of managerial and policy best practices but nudges, like that of Russo and da Rosa’s article, to consider the deeper systemic and epistemic framings of possible courses of action are also needed if broader goals of justice are to be realized.       

Conclusion

The article by Russo and Da Rosa provides an important nudge to public administrators, emergency preparedness officials and nonprofits and their supporters who respond to disasters to consider not only the systemic historical and ongoing harms that our systems create for vulnerable groups, but also to consider the pitfalls of some of our first impulses to begin undoing those harms. 

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Author:  Grant Rissler is Assistant Professor of Organizational Studies at the School of Professional and Continuing Studies, University of Richmond (VA).  He serves on the editorial board of Administrative Theory & Praxis (ATP) and focuses his research on social equity and peacebuilding with particular interest in local government responsiveness to immigrants.  The “On My Desk” series of columns, beginning in July 2024, intentionally highlights the insights of one or more articles published in ATP in relation to a current debate or event.  Grant can be rea

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