Symbolism and Resilience

I’ve been busy of late writing a paper for CARRI that explains our ideas about a Community Recovery System (CRS) and a Common Framework (CF) to wider academic and practitioner audiences. As I have done so, I have once again been struck by what a linear process writing is.

We at CARRI see disaster recovery as following a logic, but one that also shows the interconnectedness of a community.  Though post-disaster infrastructure recovery is important early on, even then the gears of a community’s economic and social system are engaging.  It is important to understand this because any recovery plan that does not will not be as effective.

As I was struggling with a way of explaining the need to pay attention to social factors, early on I thought about a community’s social capital.   Social capital is one form of glue that holds a community together during normal functioning.  It literally, to use our CRS and CF terminology, helps create a sense of community.  And it gets stressed, stretched, and challenged during and following a disaster.

I went back and searched for a quote I had highlighted in Lawrence J. Vale and Thomas J. Campanella’s edited volume, The Resilient City: How modern cities recover from disaster, written in 2005. There, Vale wrote:

     “….[R]ecovery occurs network by network, district by district, not just building by building; it is about reconstructing myriad social relationships embedded in schools, workplaces, childcare arrangements, shops, places of worship, and places of play and recreation.”   (Vale, 2005)

My mind immediately seized upon a familiar image—that of the tattered American flag that someone searching amidst the World Trade Center rubble attached to the highest girder sticking in the ground.  Even before the first truckload of debris was carted away, putting up a symbol that the city would use to endure its disaster.  Who can forget the image of sheer compassion on the fireman’s face as he tenderly carried a young child away from the rubble that had once been the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City?  These are the types of symbols that help a community rebuild.

Vale writes about other rituals that matter–the ceremony that was held before the last truck carted the last load of debris from ground zero where the towers once stood.   In his words, “Remembrance drives resilience.”

The significance of this should not be overlooked.  Even in the early stages of disaster recovery, a community should attend to matters of social capital just as it works to repair roads and bridges.  Of course, the primary form this takes is communication from community leaders that clearly understand this is both at stake and an issue.

Social functioning may rest atop adequate infrastructure and a healthy economic system, but that does not make it any less important in the meshing of gears that create community resilience.