Understanding stakeholder participation in post-disaster recovery (case study: Nagapattinam, India)

Stakeholder participation is widely acknowledged as a critical component of post-disaster recovery because it helps create a shared understanding of local hazard risk and vulnerability, improves recovery and mitigation decision efficacy, and builds social capital and local resilience to future disasters. But approaches commonly used to facilitate participation and empower local communities depend on lengthy consensus-building processes which is not conducive to time-constrained post-disaster recovery. Moreover, these approaches are often criticized for being overly technocratic and ignoring existing community power and trust structures. Therefore, there is a need for more nuanced, analytical and applied research on stakeholder participation in planning for post-disaster recovery. This research examines participatory behavior of three stakeholder groups (government agencies, non-local non-government organizations, local community-based organizations) in three coastal village communities of Nagapattinam (India) that were recovering from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The study found eight different forms of participation and non-participation in the case study communities, ranging from 'transformative' participation to 'marginalized' non-participation. These forms of participation and non-participatory behavior emanated from the negotiation of four factors, namely stakeholder power, legitimacy, trust, and urgency for action. The study also found that the time constraints and changing conditions of recovery pose particular challenges for how these factors operated on the ground and over the course of recovery. Finally, the study uses these insights to suggest four strategies for recovery managers to use in the short- and long-term to facilitate more effective stakeholder participation in post-disaster recovery.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Regional Planning

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2010

Author dc:creator

• Chandrasekhar, Divya

Contributors dc:contributor

• Olshansky, Robert B.
• Hopkins, Lewis D.
• Miraftab, Faranak
• Flint, Courtney G.

• community development
• disaster
• recovery
• stakeholder participation
• Participatory
• planning
• development
• Land Use Planning
• international development

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2010 Divya Chandrasekhar

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/16018

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/16018