PhD Defense – Diamond Holloman

Title: “I Didn’t Want to Be a Victim:” Grassroots Community-led Recovery in Post-Disaster Robeson County, North Carolina

Summary:Focusing on post-hurricane conditions after Hurricanes Matthew (2016) and Florence (2018), this dissertation examines how grassroots, community-centered approaches to long-term hurricane recovery in the American South combat systemic vulnerability-making processes in Robeson County, North Carolina (NC). To do this, I re-interpret the “disaster management cycle” (commonly used in disaster and risk
management tools) as a “hydrosocial configuration,” which brings attention to how people, institutions, water flows, hydraulic technology, and the environment together shape the management of water. Focusing on the case of Robeson County, I argue that uneven power relations shape how this management works. Chapter 1 introduces the disaster management cycle and my critiques of its functionality in communities of color, postdisaster. Chapter 2 uses Photovoice as a Black Feminist epistemology and method to examine vulnerability from the perspective of those experiencing hurricane preparation and recovery processes.  Chapter 3 argues that radical resilience is enacted in racially and ethnically marginalized communities in the wake – and further, the threat – of disasters.Chapter 4 has two purposes: 1) focusing on the case in South and West Lumberton, to highlight the importance of community organizing as a climate change adaptation strategy in communities of color. And 2) to highlight synergies between Black Geographies and Ecology while studying the human dimensions of climate change and disaster for racially marginalized communities. I conclude with a reflection on relationality, interdisciplinarity, and the policy implications of this work.