Chasing utopia: Disaster memorial volunteers at the Joplin Memorial Race

Abstract

In the days and weeks after a disaster event, communities often display a strong sense of unity and a collective sense of loss that unites helpers and community members, creating a “utopian mood.” Whereas previous research focuses on emergent disaster relief workers and volunteers in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, this research identifies a new convergent behavior where established helpers continue beyond the immediate recovery phase and constitute a new disaster volunteer type, the Disaster Memorial Volunteer. This type of volunteer participates in commemoration events that refresh the collective memory of a disaster event and potentially reduce risk to future events within that community. Through interviews and in the field observations, we examine how a commemorative running event in Joplin, Missouri annually recreates the sense of unity and comradery as was experienced in the early days of recovery from the 2011 EF-5 tornado.