摘要：As I sat watching TV coverage of the emerging wrath of Hurricane Katrina bearing down on New Orleans in August of 2005, with the streets slowly filling with water and several thousand people abandoned at the Superdome, I had no knowledge that this event would culminate in a comprehensive community-based research effort and lifestyle in which I remain deeply involved today.1 More than five years after the storm, individuals, families, and communities continue to struggle, amid persistent social and economic inequalities in the affected areas, compounded by additional crisis events, such as the BP (British Petroleum) oil spill and the recent economic crisis at the domestic and global levels. Although these particular events receive extensive media attention, numerous vulnerabilities threaten people each day and receive little coverage, if any. From the development literature, most notably through livelihoods theory, it is argued that people’s ability to handle shocks and stresses, short- and long-term, is shaped by their level of access to a wide range of socioeconomic resources (Bebbington 1999; DeHaan 2000; DeWaal 2005, as quoted in Kleiner et al. 2010: 196). Groups that are socially, economically, politically, physically, and/or geographically marginalized are especially vulnerable to shocks and stresses.
