Support and barriers in long-term recovery after Hurricane Sandy: improvisation as a communicative process of resilience

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines the long-term recovery and resilience processes of households on the New Jersey coast after Hurricane Sandy. Based on theoretical frameworks of community ecology, communication ecology, and the Communication Theory of Resilience, we analyzed focus group interviews and timeline data to examine the sources and forms of support and barrier and provide a detailed account of the ways in which individuals engaged with support and barrier sources. Results show that resilience was enacted through the process of mobilizing and improvising networks of informal and institutional ties, sometimes joining them, to access resources. Communicative processes were central to improvisation, and ineffective communication and coordination constituted a majority of barriers in accessing social support for recovery. Results also detail how processes varied temporally. This study contributes to the literature on resilience as a communicative process, with improvisation at its core, that is enacted through interacting informal, institutional, and physical systems in communities.