(Call for Abstracts) Disasters and Community Engagement
Canadian Sociological Association
Disasters and Community Engagement
Abstracts Due: Monday, February 1, 2016
Natural, technical, and intentional disasters are increasingly part of the social landscape, resulting in rising social and financial costs and in some cases, even leading to cascading disasters. Just in the last five years, there has been a significant rise in the number of disasters, including the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2010 Hurricane Igor in Newfoundland, the 2011 Slave Lake Alberta Wild Fire, the 2013 Southern Alberta Flood, the 2013 Lac-Mégantic train explosion in Québec, and the recent climate-triggered refugee crisis in Europe. Given that disasters typically impact not only individuals, but also the larger communities in which these individuals are located, involving these wider communities in our understandings and research explorations of disasters is particularly relevant. Community engagement can help to provide greater insight into the key individual, familial, social, and structural characteristics that influence and affect the experiences of those impacted by disasters. It also recognizes the value of local knowledge and can help to advance the voices of those directly impacted by disaster. This session welcomes, but is not limited to, papers on the following topics prior to, during, and post-disasters: community responses; community inter-organizational coordination; community outreach and initiatives, including community-involved emergency preparedness initiatives; individuals, families, and wider community support; knowledge mobilization; and community-engaged disaster research approaches, methods, and strengths. This session welcomes papers from an interdisciplinary perspective, from a theoretically informed basis, as well as from both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches.
Session Organizers
Eva A. Bogdan, University of Alberta: ebogdan@ualberta.ca
Timothy Haney, Mount Royal University: thaney@mtroyal.ca
Caroline McDonald-Harker, Mount Royal University: cmcdonaldharker@mtroyal.ca
Stephanie Sodero, Memorial University: sbs105@mun.ca
SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT: https://www.csa-scs.ca/conference/en/
