Reframing reality: poor black women's experiences with vulnerability and resilience during the recovery process
| Author(s) | Ayala Alanis, Yajaira Isabel | |
| Date Accessioned | 2024-10-29T16:40:22Z | |
| Date Available | 2024-10-29T16:40:22Z | |
| Publication Date | 2024 | |
| SWORD Update | 2024-10-13T22:04:56Z | |
| Abstract | This dissertation explores poor Black women’s experiences with recovery and definitions of resilience and vulnerability. Methodologically, this work uses a radical ethnographic mixed methods approach—in-depth interviews, field observations, and archival analysis—to explore how the women’s contemporary and historical experiences framed their notions of vulnerability, resiliency and recovery. The sample consists of 29 Black women (ages 34-71) residing in Lake Charles, Louisiana (LA). ☐ This study focuses on these women’s experiences after Hurricanes Laura and Delta (2020), amid the COVID-19 pandemic, floods and a severe winter storm (2021). These events delayed and exacerbated the women’s recovery efforts; for example, the women spent long periods of time displaced given the different storms and the pandemic. This complicated how and when the women received assistance. During this time, the women’s physical and mental health declined; and therefore, it made it more challenging to access needed resources. Further, the women also struggled to rebuild their homes due to different issues arising from governmental and private institutions. ☐ In response, poor Black women used organic methods of survival in the face of different forms of violence, like relying on networks of family, fictive kin, and local or non- profit organizations. Learning about these strategies provided important insights into the intellect, resourcefulness, and adaptability of poor Black women during and after periods of disasters. [Footnote: The disaster literature has emphasized that disasters are not natural. In a similar way, this study argues that disasters are created by social forces such as disparities of power, social influences and factors (Chmutina et al., 2017). | |
| Advisor | Trivedi, Jennifer W. | |
| Advisor | Payne, Yasser A. | |
| Degree | Ph.D. | |
| Program | University of Delaware, Disaster Science and Management Program | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.58088/0zha-tn62 | |
| Unique Identifier | 1499134442 | |
| URL | https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/35462 | |
| Language | en | |
| Publisher | University of Delaware | |
| URI | https://www.proquest.com/pqdtlocal1006271/dissertations-theses/reframing-reality-poor-black-women-s-experiences/docview/3116076103/sem-2?accountid=10457 | |
| Keywords | Black women | |
| Keywords | Disasters | |
| Keywords | Recovery | |
| Keywords | Resilience | |
| Keywords | Vulnerability | |
| Title | Reframing reality: poor black women's experiences with vulnerability and resilience during the recovery process | |
| Type | Thesis |