Vulnerability and Disaster Response

How can disaster response effectively address vulnerable populations, that is, those “left behind” by inequalities in race, class, gender, and bodily impairment? How should the state take such inequalities into account in disaster policy – and how can citizen groups affected by disaster effectively negotiate these inequalities to pursue a unified goal? Drawing on fieldwork based case studies and ethical theory, panelists will examine how disaster response is inflected by vulnerability – and how it could be improved.

Featured Speakers:

Lori Peek (Professor of Sociology, University of Colorado; Director, Natural Hazards Center); “Children of Katrina: Vulnerability among the Youngest Survivors of the Storm”   

Emmanuel David (Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies, University of Colorado); “Bridgework: Emergent Civic Action in Disaster Response”  

Elizabeth Brake (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Arizona State University); “Disaster, Vulnerability, and Equal Opportunity: The State's Role in Response”

*Sponsored by the Center for Values and Social Policy. Co-sponsored by the Department of Women and Gender Studies, the Department of Sociology, and the Natural Hazards Center