Vulnerable and resilient? Immigrants and refugees in the 2010–2011 Canterbury and Tohoku disasters
Introduction
This article explores how immigrants and refugees, who are linguistic minorities, experienced the 2010–2011 disasters in Canterbury, New Zealand and Tohoku, Japan. The focus is on their perceived social vulnerabilities and resilience to these disasters, which happened in two geographically distinct places within the same year. Previous research has found that linguistic minority immigrants and refugees are generally socially vulnerable on account of their position of relative deprivation compared to majority groups (see, for example, [13], [15], [22], [29]). This study explores some common features of these groups – findings that previous context- and disaster-specific case studies, despite their rich descriptions, do not offer. The authors’ personal connections and charitable activities in these two disasters enabled this unique comparative study. Further, using McIntosh's concept of “earned strength” [33], this study shows how certain social groups (linguistic minority immigrants and refugees) can be vulnerable to disasters due to their lack of capitals and also resilient in them. They actively negotiate their vulnerability by (un)intentionally generating and/or obtaining capitals that make them resilient. Here we draw on Bourdieu's theories – capital, field and habitus – to help disaster researchers re-conceptualize both the social vulnerability approach and its connections to disaster resilience thinking. As we found, some social groups can be simultaneously vulnerable and resilient to disasters, and/or are resilient because they are vulnerable.
Section snippets
Re-thinking resilience
There has been a noticeable shift in disaster research from vulnerability approaches to resilience thinking. The emphasis is now on disaster prevention and risk reduction, instead of disaster response [51]. This thinking became particularly prevalent in disaster research following the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005). As one example of its mainstreaming, the term “resilience” outnumbers “vulnerability” in the 2015 Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction [53]. Resilience has become the
Methodology and data collection
The data used for our qualitative analysis was primarily drawn from 28 in-depth interviews with immigrants, refugees and supporting organization staff conducted in Canterbury and Tohoku in 2015 and 2016 (15 in Canterbury and 13 in Tohoku). After gaining institutional ethics approval, interviewees were contacted via third parties gleaned from the researchers’ personal networks, colleagues and supporting organizations such as Tohoku Help! and the Canterbury Refugee Council (CRC). Further
Earned strength: vulnerability gives resilience
Interviewees noted a variety of strategies and resources (which we will re-conceptualize as forms of capital in the following section) that they used to cope with the disasters and their aftermath. It is unsurprising that those who had previous experiences of disasters were generally better equipped to deal with the Canterbury and Tohoku disasters. Tufuga, a Niuean immigrant woman in Canterbury, said in the “Women's Voices” project interview that: “[t]he earthquake is nothing new to me as a
Capital thinking
How are we to gain greater theoretical purchase on this phenomenon? We suggest Bourdieu's notion of capitals, field and habitus as one potentially fruitful avenue. [5] uses capital to refer to resources in the broadest sense. This capital may be economic (financial assets), cultural (skills and education), social (networks and group membership) or symbolic (rewards accruing from status). Capital possession determines one's place in the social order or in various social fields. Habitus refers to
Vulnerable or resilient, or vulnerable and resilient?
The paradox of resilience – that some groups and individuals are simultaneously vulnerable and resilient – is not only observed in immigrant and refugee communities. We also see it amongst other minority groups such as the Indigenous Māori community in Canterbury during the 2010–2011 earthquakes. Tangata whenua in Christchurch showed remarkable disaster response and recovery. Some even hailed it as exemplifying best-practice [20], [24]. Yet according to New Zealand government reports, Māori are
Conclusion
This study suggests that immigrants and refugees are resilient partly because of the everyday inequalities that already confront them, and because of their previous experiences of disastrous events. Wars, conflicts, displacement and everyday hardships have given them earned strength: “nobody is shooting at us…. there is peace, there is support here”. This has made them disaster resilient. At a more prosaic level, previous lived experience meant that some immigrants were better placed to cope
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or no-for-profit sectors.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. The authors also would like to thank the participants of this study.
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2022, International Journal of Disaster Risk ReductionCitation Excerpt :This includes considerations of gender, age, education, competencies to read and speak the dominant language and time settled in a new country [17,18]. In addition to this intersectional analysis, numerous studies have shown that social capital resources are a critical component of DRR [6,19–24]. In particular, Putnam's [25] three typologies of social capital are commonly referenced to consider the strength of horizontal and vertical networks, summarised as follows: