My initial meeting with Dr. Conca was during his office hours on Wednesday, September 5th from 1:30 to 2:00pm. During this thirty-minute meeting, we spoke mainly about broad research interests within natural disaster aid and response. I went over my initial interests during the application process last spring: the efficacy of crowd-sourced data in international disaster relief efforts. As interesting as this topic still is to me, I was honest about my desire to further explore another phenomenon I had seen in the Philippines this past summer—the rise of affordable housing in flood-prone areas within coastal cities. Instead of natural disaster relief and aid, I was beginning to shift my issue more towards disaster risk reduction through housing and infrastructure. Dr. Conca shared the work he’d done with communities in risk-reduction, and resilience-building. Most recently, he worked with communities in Ellicott City, Maryland after a deadly flash flood swept through earlier this year.[1] After our conversation, he tasked me to draft research questions that fit my new interests. He reiterated the importance of asking explanatory questions when creating a research puzzle. He eased some of my anxiety over not having a solid research question, just yet by explaining that good research works like a funnel. At the start, you have broad ideas formed from reading a variety of scholarship within the scope of your research interests. Over time, as your argument matures, the research puzzle will become more evident. By taking this approach, you do not close yourself off to other (maybe even better) research puzzles. The day after our meeting, Dr. Conca sent me reading list of articles and scholarly sources to frame my research question and educate my further on modern debates in natural disaster relief and risk reduction. When we met once more on Friday, September 7th, I came prepared with four (tentative) research puzzles:
- How does housing poverty raise natural disaster risks for cities in the Indo-Pacific/Southeast Asia?
- What do waterfront slums in Southeast Asian cities say about who is most affected by climate change?
- How do we empower residents of waterfront slums within big cities in Southeast Asia?
- Why are man-made cities under the greatest threat of natural disasters? Is it morally just to demolish them?
As it is still quite early research process, I acknowledge that these questions are in need of polishing, but they are a good start. During my second meeting with Professor Conca, from 10:30-11:10am on September 7th, we critiqued the questions I had formed and was honest about the underlying assumptions that are present in some of them. For example, in Question 3, among many underlying assumptions present, I assume that residents are disempowered or oppressed is some way. It may be a safe assumption, but I will still have to make that argument before continuing to make my broader argument. Empowerment in itself is complex, but I was inspired to ask this question none-the-less after I read an article about Makoko—the world’s biggest floating slum in Lagos, Nigeria.[2] A man-made city which the Lagos government has called an “environmental nuisance,” it’s residents are in constant threat of eviction—a threat that has, in recent years, been acted upon. Dr. Conca and I spoke about how environmental justice is often devoid of input from the people it most affects. He gave me a book recommendation that spoke directly on this issue titled “The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster.” It is a critique of international aid after the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Dr. Conca also spoke on a study he had read claiming that approximately one-third of foreign aid given by NGOs is “swept away” or wasted due to natural disasters or conflict. This was especially evident in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. In a rush to relieve Haitians survivors in refugee camps, international aid agencies and NGOs built housing at rapid rates without conducting an environmental impact analysis prior. This oversight by many well-meaning NGOs leads to homes being built on flood plains and being swept away or destroyed the next time there is heavy rainfall. Cases such as these are worth exploring further as I continue to mold my research puzzle and read more scholarly sources on the issue of natural disaster risk reduction. This week, I will continue working on the reading list Dr. Conca has sent me.
Notes
[1] Halverson, Jeff. “Analysis | The Second 1,000-year Rainstorm in Two Years Engulfed Ellicott City. Here’s How It Happened.” The Washington Post. May 28, 2018. Accessed September 09, 2018. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/05/28/the-second-1000-year-rainstorm-in-two-years-engulfed-ellicott-city-heres-how-it-happened/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ac47b53d0f54.
[2] Ogunlesi, Tolu, and Andrew Esiebo. “Inside Makoko: Danger and Ingenuity in the World’s Biggest Floating Slum.” The Guardian. February 23, 2016. Accessed September 09, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/feb/23/makoko-lagos-danger-ingenuity-floating-slum.
Always a great point about the importance of development being driven by the people who are actually affected by it. Something I’ve found in my courses is how governments often either use development dollars for their own economic or political benefit instead of entirely for the benefit of the recipient. In my IPE class last year, for example, we talked about how the US often gives “in-kind” food aid from our own farmers instead of actual money for disaster relief, and how this actually hurts the local farmers by driving down their prices. I think investigating the problems behind development and disaster relief is a super cool research area — can’t wait to see what you end up focusing on!
An excellent job here Naila! Your meetings with Dr. Conca have clearly been thought-provoking and productive. I’m glad to see that these discussions have generated some potential questions (rough questions in need of polishing are just fine at this point!) as well as some suggestions for further reading and research on your part. Keep reading and researching–I’m excited to see how the project continues to develop!