Thesis
Shifting the balance of power: Reclaiming agency in disaster recovery – a case study of the Northern Rivers Floods
Masters by Coursework, Murdoch University
2024
Abstract
This research analyses Australian case study examples of community organising in disaster response and recovery, specifically how communities across the Northern Rivers region of NSW self-organised to take collective action following devastating flooding in 2022. It explores the unique characteristics of disasters that enable contestation and negotiation across social structures and examines how communities in the Northern Rivers leveraged these opportunities by using their lived experience and personal testimony to convey their needs to the broader public through the media in an effort to influence government decision making. It examines the use of narrative to challenge dominant structures and enable communities to reclaim agency over decisions that impact their lives in disaster recovery and address broader issues of social justice. The case of the Northern Rivers floods demonstrates that media narratives are themselves a potential site for radical community organising, as well as being a terrain of contestation and negotiation between autonomous local movements and external institutions.
Details
- Title
- Shifting the balance of power: Reclaiming agency in disaster recovery – a case study of the Northern Rivers Floods
- Authors/Creators
- Jan Rooney
- Contributors
- Sean Martin-Iverson (Supervisor) - Murdoch University, School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
- Awarding Institution
- Murdoch University; Masters by Coursework
- Identifiers
- 991005741582707891
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
- Resource Type
- Thesis
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