The Cultural and Political Economy of Recovery: Social Learning in a post-disaster environment.

Cohen, Emillea ; Hall, Joshua

The Cultural and Political Economy of Recovery:

Social Learning in a post-disaster environment

Emily Chamlee-Wright

Routledge, 2010.

The Cultural and Political Economy of Recovery focuses on the nature and causes of social order through the lens of post-disaster recovery. In 2005, many Gulf Coast residents watched as their homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Beyond the physical structures in their lives, however, considerable damage was done to their way of life. Their social systems were devastated and it was a long journey to rebuild their lives from scratch. To better understand how societies respond to disaster and are (in some cases) able to recover, economist Emily Chamlee-Wright conducted hundreds of extensive interviews with the affected citizens, many from Mississippi and Louisiana, as well as evacuees living in Houston.

As an economist of the so-called Austrian School, her ideas are influenced by F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. This is important because Austrian economists mostly focus on the role of market prices in shaping economic processes. Individuals can often make rational decisions regarding the allocation of resources so as to obtain the greatest satisfaction, but the social problem of directing resources after a major disaster is far more complex. This book explores how individuals behave when they the cannot rely on market prices to guide them.

While economists often attempt to investigate how cultural factors affect economic behavior, Chamlee-Wright suggests that such studies often falls out of focus. She asserts that to understand society, we must use qualitative methods in addition to the more routine quantitative approach used by economists. She charges that to the vast majority of economists qualitative methods are quite foreign, but she presents a forceful case for their merits. She implies that economists must learn about the give and take between what they know (or think they know) from their training, and what they can learn in the field. We found this approach refreshing and found that the interviews conducted were critical to the book. Use of first-hand accounts brings individual concerns of residents to the table and adds a personal perspective on the effects of Katrina on the community.

Through her many interviews, Chamlee-Wright finds that a post-disaster context presents a social coordination problem. The private sector cannot align the expectations of displaced residents, nor can it overcome the high costs and greater uncertainty of the people who return to the damaged area.. More simply, in extreme situations like Hurricane Katrina processes we would usually rely on become overwhelmed. For example, Chamlee-Wright finds that the post-Katrina reconstruction problem is largely social. Residents were uncertain as to what others would do. Communication between evacuees was scarce and the decision to return contains a viscous cycle. Many people wanted to wait for others to return or businesses to rebuild before making the decision, all the while businesses waited for residents to return before reinvesting and rebuilding.

Of course, the problem is that if everyone waited, nothing would have materialized. Chamlee-Wright shows that it was civil society that stepped up by making commitments to long-term recovery. Community leaders such as Doris Voitier, the Superintendent of the St. Bernard Parish Public School District, pledged to the community that the recovery process would begin. Voitier promised that the district would have a place for any student who registered and, even with large obstacles, had a functioning school operating only three and a half weeks later. Chamlee-Wright also provides other evidence such as churches in the Vietnamese community of New Orleans in making her case that civil society is where the capacity lies to overcome problems of collective action in a post-disaster context.

Throughout The Cultural and Political Economy of Recovery, Chamlee-Wright focuses on how societies work and how they can rise above such horrific events even when social systems have been devastated. The biggest lesson learned from her extensive work with Katrina refugees is that civil societies, just like markets, generate a process of social learning as people find and utilize the resources around them. While Chamlee-Wright often points out that many economists are reluctant to seriously consider the potential of non-priced social contexts to cultivate social coordination, she does not attempt to elevate non-priced social learning above market social learning. She merely stands to remind us that some of what is learned in market contexts may be relevant beyond the market sphere. Just because socially embedded resources are not produced and exchanged in the same way as priced resources does not mean that economists cannot add to the discussion of how to best cultivate and deploy these resources to generate patterns of complex social action.

The second major message within the book is the management and alignment of expectations of those waiting to return. In the context of post-Katrina New Orleans, first efforts of reconstruction such as debris removal are small but necessary steps to put a reconstruction plan into action. It also acts as a signal to residents that normal life will eventually be restored. Chamlee-Wright provides a great example when she discusses a local daycare center. The center both solves both the logistical problem of parents dealing with the stresses of rebuilding, but also signals that families can expect an eventual return. Resilience within a society most often depends on the paradigm of social order we adopt. If we can recognize the presence of social learning within civil society, we can better recognize the value of individual efforts in larger patterns of community resilience.

The Cultural and Political Economy of Recovery offers a unique look at social order in the wake of disaster. The after effects of Hurricane Katrina began a long journey for Gulf Coast residents. Their social system was devastated and many had to rebuild their lives from scratch. In extreme situations markets can become overwhelmed, resulting in problems of collective action. Through insightful interviews, Chamlee-Wright identified that civil society's commitments to long-term recovery signaled to evacuees that life would eventually go back to normal and offered incentives to return to their homes. This book is thought-provoking to any reader, but is especially interesting to those in the social science field. Emily Chamlee-Wright does an excellent job collecting and analyzing interview information from hundreds of citizens directly affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Emillea Cohen

Koch Colloquium Fellow

Joshua Hall

Elbert H. Neese Jr. Professor of Economics

Beloit College.