Disaster-zone research needs a code of conduct

Abstract

magnitude-7.0 earthquake rocked Anchorage, Alaska, in late November 2018. Roads buckled and chimneys tumbled from rooftops. Business operations were disrupted. Schools were damaged across the district. This was the largest earthquake to shake the region in a generation, and there was much to learn. What was the state of the infrastructure? Might further quakes occur? How did people respond? Teams of scientists and engineers from across the United States mobilized to conduct field reconnaissance in partnership with local researchers and practitioners. These efforts were coordinated through the clearing house set up by the Earthquake Engineering Research Study the effects of earthquakes, floods and other natural hazards with sensitivity to ethical dilemmas and power imbalances.Institute in Oakland, California, which provided daily in-person and online briefings, as well as a web portal for sharing data.But researchers are not always so welcome in disaster zones. After the deadly Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 26 December 2004, hundreds of academics from countries including Japan, Russia, France and the United States rushed to the region to collect perishable data. This influx of foreign scientists angered and fatigued some locals; many declined researchers' requests for interviews. The former governor of Aceh province, Indonesia, where more than 128,000 people died, described foreign researchers as "guerrillas applying hit-and-run tactics" 1 .A collapsed building in the city of Palu in Sulawesi, Indonesia, after a magnitude-7.5 earthquake hit the region in September 2018.

Quick Response Disaster Research: Opportunities and Challenges for a New Funding Program

“…Gaillard (2019) and Gaillard and Peek (2019) call for a fundamental change in disaster research to address the ethical dilemmas and power imbalances between researchers and participants. They argue that local researchers should conduct research on local disasters, or at least be involved in making key decisions about studies by foreign researchers.…”

“…They contend that community priorities are difficult to discern and rarely singular, so privileging some local stakeholders could even serve to recreate the conditions that led to the disaster, and maintain that disseminating and refining best practices for research is the better approach. Through collaborative engagement with local populations though, researchers can identify which needs might be supported through targeted, nuanced research activities (Gaillard and Peek 2019). Attention to researcher-participant dynamics in the post-disaster environment becomes a necessary research objective.…”

“…Gaillard and Gomez (2015) raise ethical concerns about the ''gold rush'' attitude of disaster research and the intentions of academic inquiry in this realm. In response to the ''wild west'' of disaster research conduct, some countries such as New Zealand, the Philippines, Brazil, and Indonesia have sought to protect their citizens by restricting and regulating research activities to ensure that post-disaster studies are locally and culturally grounded with domestic collaborators rather than subjecting already vulnerable, disaster-affected populations to further anxiety-inducing experiences through interactions with foreign researchers (Gaillard and Peek 2019). Long-standing scholarly debates related to researcher-participant conduct and the roles and responsibilities of researchers in relation to positionality and ethical motivations apply in post-disaster research environments (Brun 2009;Calgaro 2015).…”

“…Much of the research conducted in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, for example, was produced by an inundation of academics from foreign countries. This influx angered domestic researchers and fatigued local populations, but it also contributed knowledge to understanding tsunami risks and how they can be mitigated (Gaillard and Peek 2019). This ethical dilemma is at the center of disaster research; a research process that recognizes and gives power to affected populations produces better knowledge and prevents it from coming at such a high cost.…”

“…This program is emerging at a time of change in disaster research. Not only are many factors increasing disaster risk, the culture and ethics of disaster research are being challenged to address longstanding power imbalances between researchers and disaster-affected communities (Gaillard 2019;Gaillard and Peek 2019). The type of change being called for will make a profound difference in how disaster research is conducted and the findings it reveals.…”