Abstract
Abstract In 1999 Hurricane Floyd pummeled the eastern portion of North Carolina (NC, U.S.A.), and in its wake many localities participated in federal home acquisition-relocation programs in flood-prone areas, with shared and devolved governance. This article reports on one such program that was conducted in the City of Kinston, where a historical African-American neighborhood called Lincoln City was badly flooded by water containing raw sewage from a compromised wastewater treatment plant upstream. Afterwards, some of the acquired homes were relocated to an adjacent area populated by middle-class, African-American families. The article explores to what extent political devolution of flood mitigation disempowered residents to deal with this crisis in their waterscape. Combining a framework from medical anthropology regarding the logics of choice and care with historical political ecology, it illustrates how devolved government policy led to a continuation of the waterscape's discriminatory history after the buyout program, with no recourse for local citizens as the program worked through a logic of choice that demarcated responsibilities. Understanding this case requires a historically informed assessment of social impact, in which the chosen flood mitigation measures are critically assessed using tools from historically-informed political ecology, leading to a longerterm logic of care where needed. Keywords: Devolution, flooding, path-dependency, waterscape, buyout, mitigation, care, choice
Highlights
Over the twentieth century, federal approaches to floodplain management in the U.S.A evolved from structural engineering projects to mitigation initiatives, such as home acquisition and relocation of homeowners—buyouts—out of the flood-prone areas (Barry 1998; Berke 1995, Brody et al 2011; Godschalk 1999; Miletti 1999; Nilsson 2005; Platt 1999)
There was a conflict between a 'historical' ideology of discrimination, actively re-constructed through technologies of risk in the waterscape, and the cornerstone idea of 'choice' that led devolved, mitigation decision making, permitting voluntary decisions to be made in response to offers of mitigation. we argue a logic of care would have been better suited to govern this mitigation project (Mol 2008; Mol et al 2010)
While this article does not question the intentions of the officials developing the "Call Kinston Home" program to provide a practical answer to the need for affordable housing, this case illustrates how a logic of choice by FEMA within devolved buyout mitigation played out in a waterscape that had long been characterized by racialized power dynamics
Summary
Federal approaches to floodplain management in the U.S.A evolved from structural engineering projects (levées and dams) to mitigation initiatives, such as home acquisition and relocation of homeowners—buyouts—out of the flood-prone areas (Barry 1998; Berke 1995, Brody et al 2011; Godschalk 1999; Miletti 1999; Nilsson 2005; Platt 1999). As homeowners make the decision whether to vacate their homes and accept compensation, buyout professionals communicate messages of risk, at times supported by emotional references to previous flood hazards In this context, floodplain populations are seen to be in need of care in the form of protection against unnecessary flood risk, for themselves and for the economic wellbeing of entire localities. Waterscapes become locked in a certain direction that stakeholders find hard to change or reverse (Joosse 2010) If this is correct, tracing connections between current and past practices may reveal situations in which a caring approach is better suited to deal with the buyout program than offering choice.
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