Journey Through the Groan Zone with Academics and Practitioners: Bridging Conflict and Difference to Strengthen Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery Work

Katherine E. Browne; Caela O'Connell; Laura Meitzner Yoder

doi:10.1007/s13753-018-0180-y

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Article Navigation > International Journal of Disaster Risk Science > 2018 > 9(3): 421-428

Katherine E. Browne, Caela O'Connell, Laura Meitzner Yoder. Journey Through the Groan Zone with Academics and Practitioners: Bridging Conflict and Difference to Strengthen Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery Work[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2018, 9(3): 421-428. doi: 10.1007/s13753-018-0180-y

Citation:

Katherine E. Browne, Caela O'Connell, Laura Meitzner Yoder. Journey Through the Groan Zone with Academics and Practitioners: Bridging Conflict and Difference to Strengthen Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery Work[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2018, 9(3): 421-428. doi: 10.1007/s13753-018-0180-y

Citation:

Katherine E. Browne, Caela O'Connell, Laura Meitzner Yoder. Journey Through the Groan Zone with Academics and Practitioners: Bridging Conflict and Difference to Strengthen Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery Work[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2018, 9(3): 421-428. doi: 10.1007/s13753-018-0180-y

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Journey Through the Groan Zone with Academics and Practitioners: Bridging Conflict and Difference to Strengthen Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery Work

doi: 10.1007/s13753-018-0180-y

1 Department of Anthropology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA;
2 Department of Anthropology-Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights Program, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA;
3 Program in Human Needs and Global Resources, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187, USA

Funds:

The authors thank Adam Koons, Laura Olson, Robert MacLeod, Martha King, and IIan Kelman for their valuable review, assistance, and comments on this piece. Many thanks to our fellow CADAN members for your continued input, good humor, and ongoing journey through the Groan Zone with us. Funding for Browne and O’Connell’s Culture and Disaster Workshop came from the US National Science Foundation’s Program in Cultural Anthropology (award # BCS-1647248) and we are forever grateful for this support.

Available Online: 2021-04-26

Abstract

Abstract

Academic-practitioner divides in disaster management and research can be persistent and pernicious, bearing consequences for disaster survivors and future affected populations. The gap between disaster professionals and academic researchers is often treated as an unavoidable structural problem or a neutral accident of professional silos and circumstance. We suggest that these gaps are not neutral, and that they can and must be overcome. With hundreds of millions of people affected by disaster each year and recovery costs skyrocketing, there is urgency in connecting researcher and practitioner knowledges to avoid expensive mistakes and most importantly, to decrease human suffering. Yet the difficulties that US academic anthropologists and practitioners experienced in their efforts to collaborate became evident in a cross-sector National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded workshop on the relevance of culture in disaster work. We suggest and illustrate how more systematic cross-field communication can be operationalized through engaging in an ongoing and relational process of bridging. Such a process can offer long-term benefits to the people and institutions involved, dramatically enhance the science of disaster management, and help reduce the social and material costs of disaster impacts.
- Academic and practitioner divide,
- Applied research,
- Cross-sector communication,
- Culture and disaster,
- Disaster anthropology,
- Disaster management

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