Gendered Vulnerability: LGBTQ+ & Psychological Impact

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Gender, Place & Culture A Journal of Feminist Geography

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Queering disasters: on the need to account for LGBTI experiences in natural disaster contexts

Dale Dominey-Howes, Andrew Gorman-Murray & Scott McKinnon

To cite this article: Dale Dominey-Howes, Andrew Gorman-Murray & Scott McKinnon (2014) Queering disasters: on the need to account for LGBTI experiences in natural disaster contexts, Gender, Place & Culture, 21:7, 905-918, DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2013.802673

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2013.802673

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Queering disasters: on the need to account for LGBTI experiences in natural disaster contexts

Dale Dominey-Howes a **, Andrew Gorman-Murray

b * and Scott McKinnon

b

a Australia-Pacific Tsunami Research Centre and Natural Hazards Research Laboratory, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;

b School of Social Sciences and Psychology,

University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia

(Received 21 March 2012; final version received 4 December 2012)

This article seeks a queering of research and policy in relation to natural disasters, their human impacts, management and response. The human impacts of natural disasters vary across different social groups. We contend that one group largely absent from scholarly and policy agendas is sexual and gender minorities, or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual and intersex (LGBTI) populations. To demonstrate that these minorities have particular experiences that need to be addressed, we critically review five case studies that comprise the limited scholarly and policy research on LGBTI populations in disasters to date. Building on this, we offer some specific ways forward for queer disaster research that accounts for the vulnerabilities, needs and resilient capacities of LGBTI populations. In doing so, we recognise and urge researchers, policy-makers and aid agencies to acknowledge that LGBTI populations are not homogeneous and have different needs wrought by intersections of socio-economic resources, gender, race/ethnicity, age and regional or national location.

Keywords: LGBTI populations; queer; natural disasters; resilience; vulnerability

Introduction

We seek a queering of research and policy in relation to natural disasters, their human

impacts, management and response, and encourage the development of research and policy

agendas that account for the experiences of sexual and gender minorities. Specifically, we

argue that the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual and intersex (LGBTI)

populations are inadequately accounted for in disaster management policies and research.

Numerous stakeholders have expressed concern about the increase in natural disasters in the

wake of global environmental and climate change, and the mounting toll of these disasters on

global societies. However, human impacts vary across different social groups and spatial and

temporal scales, and we show that one group largely absent from scholarly and policy work

is sexual and gender minorities (Cianfarani 2012). We further urge researchers, policy-

makers and aid agencies to acknowledge that LGBTI populations are not homogeneous and

have different needs wrought by the competing intersections of socio-economic resources,

gender, race/ethnicity, age and regional or national milieu.

To advance this call for queering disaster research, we first outline some background

concepts concerning natural disasters, their human impacts and key ideas of vulnerability

and resilience. To show that sexual and gender minorities have particular experiences that

need to be addressed, we then critically review the limited scholarly and policy research on

q 2013 Taylor & Francis

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] **Now at School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

Gender, Place and Culture, 2014

Vol. 21, No. 7, 905–918, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2013.802673

LGBTI populations in disasters. This critical review, which includes five case studies of

natural disaster impacts on particular LGBTI groups, reveals the fact that these

populations have specific needs that often go unmet. This review also highlights the

necessity for further research across a broader range of contexts and using an expanded

range of methodological approaches. We conclude by offering some specific ways forward

for queer disaster research that accounts for the vulnerabilities, needs and resilient

capacities of LGBTI populations, thus helping to address the gaps we have identified.

Ultimately, we argue that scholarship and policies related to natural disaster

management can operate more inclusively by acknowledging the importance of socially

constructed notions of sexual and gender identities in their current practice. As argued by

Jagose (1996, 16), ‘heterosexuality is too often represented as unremarkable’ and as the

normative position of which other sexual identities are seen as derivative. The work of

queer theory disrupts this imagining and, within the context of disaster management

policies, can highlight the usually unremarked role of sexual and gender identities in

defining how natural disasters are experienced. When undertaken with research into the

specific needs of sexual and gender minorities, this work creates space in which more

inclusive policies can be developed.

Natural disasters, vulnerability and resilience

Natural hazards that occur within the earth systems (atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere,

lithosphere) may be sudden or rapid onset (e.g. earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados) or slow

onset (e.g. drought, tropical cyclones), and regularly cause adverse effects on human

societies and their activities (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

[UNISDR] 2009). Natural hazards, and the disasters that they can cause, appear to be

increasing in frequency and intensity (UNISDR 2011). Disaster losses certainly are

(Figures 1 and 2; UNISDR 2011). The processes of global environmental and climate

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Year

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Figure 1. Summary of global natural disasters between 1900 and 2010: includes number of disasters, deaths and people affected (linear – extrapolated smooth lines), by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (2011). The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database – EM-DAT, Brussels, Belgium.

906 D. Dominey-Howes et al.

change point towards further increases in the frequency and intensity of future natural

hazard events (Adger et al. 2005; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007). The

losses associated with these events are intensified by increasing human populations and

their associated exposure in risky geographic locations, as well as poor land management

practices and negative feedback within the coupled ‘socio-ecological system’.

Disasters triggered by natural hazards adversely affect society and seriously disrupt its

physical and human fabric, including infrastructure, communities and social relations. For

an event to be designated as a ‘disaster’, the cumulative material, human and

environmental losses must exceed ‘the capacity of the affected society to cope with its own

resources’ (Ginige, Amaratunga, and Haigh 2009, 23; UNISDR 2009). However, impacts

are never evenly distributed nor uniformly experienced because different social groups

exhibit varying characteristics of vulnerability and resilience (Finch, Emrich, and Cutter

2010). Socially oriented disaster research demonstrates disparities by gender, ethnicity/

race, class/income, disability and age, during both the impact and recovery phases of the

disaster cycle (Figure 3; McEntire 2001, 2005).

There is, and continues to be, a vital need for scholarly and policy research in human

geography and disaster studies on the human impacts and aspects of natural disasters. Such

scholarship is concerned with the effects of natural disasters on individuals, their well-

being and social functioning. This includes interrelated impacts on bodily, mental and

emotional health, interpersonal relationships, social connectivity, material infrastructure,

economic activities, cultural heritage, and built and natural environmental integrity.

A fundamental concern should be with individual and communal experiences of

vulnerability and resilience during and after disasters. This, in fact, constitutes the critical

work involved in addressing and improving hazard prevention and response, since the

human impact is what defines a disaster. As McEntire (2001, 2005) argues, a disaster is not

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950

Year

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

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OFDA created (1964)

CRED created & OFDA began compiling (1973)

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Figure 2. Natural disasters reported between 1900 and 2010 across the globe (with key EM-DAT dates) by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (2011). The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database – EM-DAT, Brussels, Belgium.

Gender, Place and Culture 907

a natural event in isolation, but a combination of a triggering agent and a set of

vulnerabilities within a given society. Disasters are a social construct.

Vulnerability, while contested and debated, broadly denotes the physical, social,

cultural, economic and political conditions that affect the ability of individuals, families,

households, communities and countries to prevent, prepare for, respond to, mitigate and

recover from hazardous events and their associated disasters (Ariyabandu and

Wickramasinghe 2003; McEntire 2001). These vulnerabilities may be found at the level

of the individual (e.g. emotional health, level of education, access to information), the

family (e.g. economic security, connectivity with wider social support networks),

community (e.g. social connectivity, infrastructure) and/or polity (e.g. political

organisation, policy response). Resilience is vulnerability’s partner concept and denotes

the ability of individuals, communities and countries in highly disruptive events, like

disasters, to maintain relatively stable psychological and social functioning, allowing for

the capacity to access and organise resources, and ‘spring back’ in a timely and efficient

manner (Bonanno et al. 2007; UNISDR 2009).

Vulnerability and resilience, then, are not separate categorical experiences, but

interconnected. There is a spectrum of needs and experiences that track between and link

these two concepts (Miller et al. 2010). A single disaster event can produce experiences of

both vulnerability and resilience simultaneously. A given society might be vulnerable due

to physical location, poor planning, inadequate infrastructure, public apathy or uneven

distribution of wealth and resources, but certain individuals within the community might

be resilient. Vice versa, within a well-planned and resourced resilient society, some

individuals and groups will still be vulnerable to disruptions caused by a disaster, and

Figure 3. Simplified outline of the ‘disaster cycle’ (after Alexander 2000).

908 D. Dominey-Howes et al.

some of these effects might be long term since disaster impacts can transcend multiple

scales of space and time – they ‘ripple out’ across connected socio-ecological systems.

The varying experiences of vulnerability and resilience within a disaster are due to

social differences within a community or country, making certain individuals and groups

more vulnerable or resilient (Finch, Emrich, and Cutter 2010). Accordingly, the UNISDR

contends that social difference be recognised, and:

the needs and concerns of all social groups such as poor, rich, men, women, young, old, indigenous or non-indigenous must be necessarily integrated into the disaster reduction policies and measures because the level of vulnerability depends on these social aspects. (Ginige, Amaratunga, and Haigh 2009, 24)

Studies into social differences and uneven vulnerability and resilience have thus been a key

research agenda over the last decade, with a range of work conducted in various disaster

contexts, in developing and developed, Westernand non-Western countries. We donot have

space to provide a comprehensive review of the extensive literature on experiences of

vulnerability and resilience of different social groups. This has been done elsewhere.

However, we note that considerable attention has been given to disparities wrought by

gender, race, ethnicity, age and income (or class) (Furr et al. 2010; Henderson and Hildreth

2011; Roberto et al. 2010; Shelton and Coleman 2009; Sultana 2010). This work

demonstrates that women (Enarson and Chakrabarti 2009), ethnic and racial minorities

(Burton et al. 2006; Ray-Bennett 2009), the poor (Ahern and Galea 2006), the old (Shenk

et al. 2010), the young (Kronenberg et al. 2010) and the disabled (Peek and Stough 2010)

often exhibit greater vulnerability and less resilience to the effects of disasters, during both

the impact and recovery phases. Some studies also describe examples of resilience within

each of these groups during particular events. While often informative for the ways in which

marginalised groups experience vulnerabilities or develop means of resilience, and

therefore useful in indicating potential experiences of LGBTI populations, these studies

have often made heteronormative assumptions of sexual and gender identity.

Feminist geography has also begun to attend to the intersections of vulnerability and

adaptive capacity in natural disaster situations, suggesting that important insights could be

gained by applying geographical lenses on gender relations and sexuality in order to elicit and

address these social inequities (Hyndman 2008; Reed and Christie 2009; Seager 2006). In

Gender, Place and Culture, Katz (2008) applied the feminist concept of social reproduction

to understand differences in vulnerability and resilience in post-Katrina New Orleans. In

doing so, she showed that the city not only had existing ‘corrosive inequalities around class,

race, and gender’, but that long-term disinvestment in social reproduction – relief

infrastructure, health care, housing, education and social justice – underpinned particularly

detrimental post-disaster outcomes for women and lone parents (Fraser 2006; Katz 2008, 15).

Inequities around state and private investment in neighbourhoods and urban infrastructure

generated ‘uneven recovery’ along axes of gender and household type, which saw non-

nuclear families severely impacted during and after the disaster. She also highlighted

community-based social movements through which such marginalised populations were

redressing this situation and enhancing their resilience. Grassroots activism and activities

provided ‘various strategies for reconnecting the dispersed communities of New Orleans and

bolstering their means of coping with the extraordinary losses and displacements’, including

collective assistance with housing needs, neighbourhood clean-up and reconstruction, tools

and goods exchange, and medical care (Katz 2008, 25).

These arguments canvassed within feminist geography are informative for our

commentary. We advance this scholarship by calling attention to one group that remains

largely absent from existing research, even feminist geographical approaches to disaster

Gender, Place and Culture 909

impacts: specifically, sexual and gender minorities (Cianfarani 2012). We argue that

LGBTI populations must be encompassed in research and policy agendas to achieve

effective disaster management that incorporates these populations as part of the total

‘social composition of a place’. 1

What are the experiences of LGBTI people in natural disasters?

Having made the claim that sexual and gender minorities should be explicitly considered

in disaster contexts and that such consideration is largely absent, we must nonetheless ask

the question: ‘What are the experiences of LGBTI people in natural disasters?’ The

available literature does take valuable first steps in highlighting experiences specific to

LGBTI people and in challenging heteronormative assumptions of sexual and gender

identity in disaster management and relief policies. Here, we review the entire literature

we have been able to identify. Each is a case study of experiences in specific geographical

contexts. By identifying the negative impacts current policies have had on LGBTI

populations and highlighting the role of sexual and gender identities in the ways in which

natural disasters are experienced, these studies point towards the importance of queering

scholarship and policy in this field.

The majority of case study research comes from New Orleans following Hurricane

Katrina. However, there are significant lessons to be learned from elsewhere, and we take

pointers from new scholarship as well as from policy work commissioned by human rights

NGOs and conducted on LGBTI experiences in other disaster contexts. Figure 4 locates

these studies, visualising the limited geographical range of work on LGBTI experiences,

underscoring the need for more empirical research. It is not our intention to provide

exhaustive descriptions of each natural disaster event, nor all the complex socio-economic,

cultural, political, sexual and other factors at play in each context, but to highlight the

salient issues that arose for sexual and gender minorities in each case.

Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 2005

The existing scholarship on LGBTI experiences, with respect to Hurricane Katrina’s

impact on New Orleans in 2005 and the city’s ongoing recovery (D’Ooge 2008; Leap,

Lewin, and Wilson 2007; Richards 2010), highlights three specific themes: first, the

impacts of heteronormative assumptions in policy development; second, the consequences

of ongoing anti-LGBTI discrimination; and third, the diversity of experiences within

LGBTI populations as affected by issues of class, race/ethnicity and gender.

First, the research to date indicates that heteronormative assumptions, either of

individual identities and/or the gender composition of ‘families’ and couples, can leave

LGBTI populations vulnerable. ‘Families’, for example, were defined by governmental

and non-governmental agencies in New Orleans as comprising an opposite-sex couple and

their biological children. Those in same-sex relationships were therefore not recognised as

comprising a ‘family’ or a ‘couple’ and were excluded from the support provided to

heterosexual residents. As a result, some same-sex couples were separated and resettled in

different cities (Caldwell 2006; Leap, Lewin, and Wilson 2007).

The assumption of heterosexuality in recovery policies and activities has also

prioritised middle-class family suburbs and infrastructural needs, so there remain concerns

about whether the original LGBTI residential, commercial and tourist areas will receive

much needed funding to enable rebuilding to occur (Richards 2010).

Second, ongoing anti-LGBTI discrimination and stigmatisation were found to increase

LGBTI vulnerabilities. LGBTI populations are often enrolled, for example, into disaster

910 D. Dominey-Howes et al.

discourses by US right-wing religious groups, who assert natural disasters as divine

retribution for those who ‘sin’ (and those who support them) (Richards 2010). This suggests

a specific vulnerabilityof LGBTI populations in disaster contexts. The below quotation is an

example, directed here at Australia following weather-related disasters in 2009:

NEWS RELEASE GOD HATES AUSTRALIA. THANK GOD FOR KILLER FIRES & FLOODS, 100 þ DEAD; PRAY FOR MANY MORE; AS WE WARNED. Yes. It is WBC’s sincerely held religious belief that Australia is a land of False Prophets, many of whom are fags or fag-enablers. They helped create a hellish Zeitgeist wherein a world-wide Sodomite cult flourishes, and wherein Final Antichrist Beast Obama has been able to come to the Presidency of the United States and the de facto Leader of the so called Free World. Mat. 7:15–20; Rev. 13: 1–18. God is punishing Australia for her part in this worldwide fiasco; worse and more of it is coming from God. “And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book.” Deut. 29:27. (Westboro Baptist Church news release (www.godhatesfags.com) that demonises and attributes blame for natural disasters on ‘homosexuals’ and their defenders (including President Obama). (Source: the words of the news release can be Googled and are reported in Wikipedia. However, the news release is also reported at: http://www.atheistfoundation.org. au/forums/showthread.php?t1

4 2400, accessed 16 December 2011.))

Figure 4. Locating work on disaster contexts and LGBTI experiences. Red disaster stars relate to actual former studies referred to in the text – (1) Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, (2) 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Tamil Nadu, India, (3) 2010 earthquake in Haiti, (4) 2010 eruption of Mt Merapi, Java and (5) tropical cyclone and rain storms, the Philippines. Grey disaster stars relate to possible future geographic studies of past events – (1) earthquake and tsunami in Japan, (2) earthquake and tsunami in Chile, (3) floods in Brisbane, Australia, (4) earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, (5) tornadoes in central USA and (6) earthquakes and wildfires in California, USA. These previous events offer the opportunity to explore LGBTI experiences across a variety of hazard process types, geographical locations, scales and urban, rural and regional settings. These examples are illustrative rather than exhaustive.

Gender, Place and Culture 911

Third, this research highlights the importance of addressing ethnicity/race, socio-

economic status and gender as factors that create differing levels of vulnerability in

LGBTI populations. Lesbians, bisexual women and queers of colour (non-White LGBTI

people), for example, were more vulnerable than most White middle-class gay men due to

lower incomes, and also because the neighbourhoods where they lived were subject to

greater flooding (D’Ooge 2008). Transgender and intersex people, meanwhile, had

difficulties in evacuation shelters, where their gender identity was questioned and they

were harassed for using the ‘wrong’ bathroom (D’Ooge 2008).

While the literature on LGBTI populations in post-Katrina New Orleans largely discusses

the vulnerabilities resulting from heteronormative assumptions of sexual and gender identity,

there was also evidence of resilience among the city’s LGBTI population. Already used to

dealing with such assumptions and policies in both government and non-government

organisations, some LGBTI people creatively figured out ways to sustain their senses of

self, community and belonging in the face of both a natural disaster (the hurricane and

associated catastrophic flooding) and the ‘invisible disaster’ associated with accidental (or

deliberate?) exclusion from the official recovery and assistance process. Friendship networks,

for example, were used to establish an alternative ‘network of information exchange about

sources of housing, food, and medicalcare, availability of social services, and whether friends

had survived and if so, their current addresses’ (Leap, Lewin, and Wilson 2007, 13).

Given the diversity of New Orleans’ LGBTI communities (Richards 2010), it is

difficult to imagine that stories of resilience or vulnerability reported to date exhaust their

experiences. Consequently, there is a need to further investigate LGBTI experiences of

both vulnerability and resilience in New Orleans, and to compare these with different

national and international disaster contexts – a task discussed below.

Haitian earthquake, 2010

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and SEROVie

(an HIV/AIDS NGO) assessed the impact of the 2010 Haitian earthquake, and relief and

recovery programmes, on Haiti’s LGBTI population, citing specific vulnerabilities. These

reinforce and extend the findings from post-Katrina New Orleans. First, the greatest

impact of the earthquake identified by the majority of LGBTI people was the destruction

of ‘already limited physical spaces, social networks and support services available to

them’ (IGLHRC/SEROVie 2011, 3). Private spaces are important for LGBTI well-being,

since minority sexual and gender identities are often publicly concealed and privately

expressed. The loss in Haiti of homes, neighbourhoods, community meeting places and

HIV/AIDS service spaces affected emotional, physical and social well-being.

Second, as in New Orleans, LGBTI communities were further marginalised as

churches blamed them for ‘causing’ the earthquake. Following accusatory sermons, some

gay and bisexual men were assaulted.

Third, LGBTI persons and families were vulnerable in shelters. Lesbians, bisexual

women, and transgender and intersex people were subject to gender-based violence and

‘corrective rape’. Gay and bisexual men also reported forced ‘sexual relations with

straight-identified men for food or money’ (IGLHRC/SEROVie 2011, 4). Consequently,

some men took on a ‘more masculine demeanor’ to avoid abuse and reduce the chance of

‘being denied access to emergency housing, healthcare, and/or enrolment in food-for-work

programs’ on the basis of appearing ‘effeminate’ (IGLHRC/SEROVie 2011, 4–5).

IGLHRC/SEROVie found that LGBTI people and their specific problems were largely

invisible to both domestic and international aid agencies. While there will be differences

912 D. Dominey-Howes et al.

between developing and developed, Western and non-Western socio-legal and economic

contexts, these insights are nevertheless important in shaping important research areas

such as LGBTI invisibility in policy and aid work, loss of LGBTI support and meeting

places, and LGBTI experiences of exclusion and harassment in shelters.

South and South-East Asian natural disasters, 2004–2010

Three separate studies have investigated disaster impacts among specific populations who

adopt both non-normative gender roles and sexual orientation in South and South-East

Asia. Each of these three groups – the aravanis of Tamil Nadu, India, warias of Central

Java, Indonesia and baklas of Irosin, the Philippines – defines their gender and sexual

identity in localised ways and should not be read as a homogeneous group operating across

regional or national borders. However, each study does reveal similar themes about the

impact of heteronormative gender assumptions on groups who do not define their gender

along a male/female binary. Everyday vulnerabilities experienced by these groups due to

stigmatisation and discrimination are increased in natural disaster contexts due to the loss

of personal spaces and privacy. Official policies, which assume binary gender identities,

have been found to further increase these vulnerabilities. In focusing on issues of non-

normative gender identity – the experiences of those whose identity arguably fits, or at

least parallels, intersex and/or transgender/transsexual people – each of these studies

constitutes a vital complement to the research already discussed.

Pincha (2008), for example, examined the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in

Tamil Nadu, India, using a gender lens. Significantly, her work included aravanis, who

‘may be born intersex or apparently male, dress in feminine clothes and generally see

themselves as neither women nor men’ (Pincha and Krishna 2008). Even before the effects

of the natural disaster, many aravanis generally lived in poverty and survived by begging

and dancing for payment. Already stigmatised in Indian society, the social and economic

disruption of the tsunami heightened their vulnerability. They simply did not register as a

marginal group with specific needs. Some were denied shelter and aid because they could

not be officially recorded as ‘male’ or ‘female’ by domestic or international agencies.

Others who accessed shelters were harassed and denied further aid (i.e. food, clothes).

Meanwhile, those both in and out of shelters reported physical and sexual abuse.

The increased vulnerabilities resulting from binary-gendered, heteronormative

policies and practices were similarly experienced by warias in Central Java, Indonesia,

during the eruption of Mt Merapi in 2010. Waria individuals are ‘biologically male but

adopt distinctly feminine features and identity’ (Balgos, Gaillard, and Sanz 2012, 339).

They are generally not accepted by the Islamic religion and often struggle for acceptance

within their families and the wider society. Balgos, Gaillard, and Sanz (2012, 341) note

that warias were invisible in the aftermath of the volcanic eruption because official policy

guidelines listed evacuees as ‘women, men, boys or girls’ only. Thus, ‘institutional

processes that should acknowledge the diverse social groups who are differently affected

in a disaster were missing’ (Balgos, Gaillard, and Sanz 2012, 341).

Gaillard (2011) examined the experiences of baklas, a marginalised sexual and gender

group in the Philippines whose identity encompasses both non-normative gender

performativity and sexual orientation. Like warias, baklas are biologically male but

‘swing from male to female tasks and responsibilities’ (Gaillard 2011, 122). In the town of

Irosin, a site subject to frequent evacuations due to cyclone and heavy rain events, baklas

experience specific vulnerabilities in evacuation centres. Uncomfortable with either men

or women, baklas suffer from a lack of privacy in centres in which accommodation is

Gender, Place and Culture 913

divided according to binary gender identities. When assigned to male accommodations,

baklas often experience mockery and prejudice.

While noting the impact on vulnerabilities of continuing stigmatisation and of

gendered disaster relief and management policies, each of these studies also revealed

strategies of resilience developed by these groups. Rather than risk discrimination in

evacuation sites, for example, many warias sought help from friendship networks. Both

warias and baklas, meanwhile, enacted particular means of assisting other populations to

cope with disaster impacts, such as collecting relief goods, initiating clean-up and

providing personal grooming services. Gaillard argued that baklas are known for ‘their

sense of initiative and leadership’ and are thus ‘crucial resource persons within their

communities when confronted with natural hazards’ (2011, 122). A dialogue between this

group and the larger community was established, which incorporated and acknowledged

the contributions of baklas in disaster response programmes. This dialogue ‘helps in

reducing discrimination and mockery during disasters’ (Gaillard 2011, 124).

Where to from here?

This literature on New Orleans, Haiti, Tamil Nadu, Irosin and Central Java constitutes

the small body of scholarly and policy work on LGBTI experiences in natural disaster

contexts. Through our review, we have identified a series of issues for future

research. 2

First, more (and more geographically varied) baseline data are needed – see Figure 4

for further possible case study locations. While the above case studies are a vital and

suggestive start, the existing work on LGBTI vulnerability and resilience remains limited

and piecemeal. It is thus critical to undertake more systematic and focused work on LGBTI

experiences in natural disaster contexts elsewhere, and create a meta-analytic picture of

LGBTI experiences. Further empirical research and fieldwork is needed to more

comprehensively determine the specific needs of LGBTI populations during and after

disasters, and to analyse how LGBTI populations are addressed and accommodated in

disaster contexts by government authorities, private enterprises, public institutions and

non-government organisations across a range of locations.

Second, following from the above point, more needs to be done to reduce the unique

vulnerabilities LGBTI populations do face during and after disasters. These vulnerabilities

are a social problem, underpinned by heteronormative assumptions in disaster response

and recovery, which may be addressed through new policy agendas (Cianfarani 2012).

Policy research must contest the assumption of heterosexuality and ‘nuclear families’ in

existing national, international, governmental and non-governmental frameworks for

natural disaster response, and seek the development of response and recovery policies that

account for different sexual/gender identities and family structures (Balgos, Gaillard, and

Sanz 2012). This will be a challenge for emergency agencies (e.g. in terms of temporary

shelters), insurance providers (e.g. in terms of home rebuilding) and government

departments (e.g. in terms of infrastructure and health services).

Third, aiding policy development that reduces LGBTI vulnerabilities poses challenges

for academic conceptualisations of sexual and gender identity claims. Strategic policy

work asks tough questions of research agendas in sexuality studies, particularly assertions

in queer theory about the fluidity, instability and irrelevance of claims to sexual and gender

identity (Leap, Lewin, and Wilson 2007). While sexual and gender identity is arguably

mutable, this conceptual position is unhelpful in the material conditions of disaster impact,

response and recovery. Leap, Lewin, and Wilson (2007) indicate that claims to sexual and

914 D. Dominey-Howes et al.

gender identity did matter in post-Katrina New Orleans, where national agencies made

assumptions about sexual and gender identity in policy and practice, with significant

material consequences for LGBTI people. If sexuality studies are to contribute to scholarly

and policy research on LGBTI experiences of natural disasters (it should, we argue), then

theoretical positions will need to wrestle with how to configure sexual and gender identity

claims for policy development.

Fourth, we need ongoing research and policy work into the diversity, and diverse needs,

within LGBTI populations. This means, despite the above point, we cannot dismiss queer

theory and commensurate arguments about the complexity and mutability of sexual and

gender identity. These concepts remain vitally relevant because LGBTI populations are not

homogeneous, but distinguished by gender, class, race, ethnicity, HIV status, age and place

(Gorman-Murray, Johnston, and Waitt 2010). These intersections not only differentiate

LGBTI people but also mean that particular subgroups face specific vulnerabilities.

Informed by queer frames, new research must seek to understand differences in the

experiences and needs of LGBTI populations in disasters by national, social and legal

situation, and intersections of gender identity, class, race/ethnicity, age and disability.

Finally, more needs to be done to positively enhance the resilience and adaptive

capacity, not just reduce the vulnerability, of LGBTI populations. It is important to

acknowledge that LGBTI people, while facing heteronormative exclusions in policies and

processes, also creatively harness specialised means of resilience, such as friendship

networks and ‘families-of-choice’ (Weeks, Heaphy, and Donovan 2001). Further research,

which seeks to understand the role of social and LGBTI media, LGBTI community

organisations and the importance of organisations and protocols established in the face of

earlier and on-going crises (e.g. HIV/AIDS), is necessary to more fully understand this

resilience. Response and recovery policy might best assist LGBTI populations through

activities that build on, and not against, existing resilience and adaptive capacity

(Cianfarani 2012). Policy development about temporary shelters, relocation and

rebuilding might account for friendship networks and ‘families-of-choice’. Simul-

taneously, research and policy should acknowledge that cohesive relations between

LGBTI populations and wider social settings are an important facet of resilience. Research

here could seek to understand how social, cultural and familial linkages beyond LGBTI

communities are affected in disaster contexts and how they might be built into response

and recovery policies that enhance resilience.

Acknowledgements

We thank two referees for astute feedback. While we could not integrate all their suggestions, their commentaries are productive for our future work in this area. Thanks to Peter Hopkins for generous editorial guidance. We acknowledge research-funding support from a University of Western Sydney Research Grant and two Australian Research Council Discovery Project grants (DP130102658, DP130100877), which aim to develop insight into sexual and gender minorities’ experiences in natural disaster contexts.

Notes

1. Tellingly, a 112-page research bibliography on ‘the human effects of Hurricane Katrina’ published in July 2011 contains no citations on specific LGBTI experiences post-Katrina (although we have located such work) (Erickson and Peek 2011, 2).

2. While beyond the scope of this commentary, additional insight into LGBTI vulnerability and resilience might come from work on ‘technological disasters’ (e.g. 9/11 New York City), conflict situations (e.g. war, persecution, displacement) and health crises (e.g. HIV/AIDS).

Gender, Place and Culture 915

Notes on contributors

Associate Professor Dale Dominey-Howes is the co-director of the Australia-Pacific Tsunami Research Centre and Natural Hazards Research Laboratory at the University of New South Wales. His expertise is in natural hazards, hazard, risk and vulnerability assessment, disaster and emergency management, and interconnections between biophysical systems and the socio-economic contexts in which disasters unfold. He has worked extensively with local, state and federal governments, universities and government agencies throughout Australasia, Asia, the Pacific and Europe on natural hazards and disaster risk reduction projects. His recent work includes developing a new, integrated, multidisciplinary, multi-sectoral framework (a ‘coupled human-environment systems framework’) for post-tsunami disaster impact assessment, published in Nature. In 2009, he was appointed by the United Nations (UN) to lead the largest post-tsunami disaster assessment team assembled in the South Pacific, and his framework was implemented by the UN in 2010.

Andrew Gorman-Murray is a senior lecturer in Social Sciences (Geography and Urban Studies) at the University of Western Sydney. His expertise is in gender geographies and in geographies of sexualities. His primary research interests are sexual minorities’ experiences of belonging and exclusion in everyday spaces, including homes, neighbourhoods, suburbs and country towns. His work analyses the intersections between queer politics, everyday experience, and urban and regional geographies, seeking to enhance social inclusion alongside scholarly thinking. His work is published in journals across geography and the social sciences, including Environment and Planning A; Social & Cultural Geography; Gender, Place and Culture; International Journal of Urban and Regional Research; Journal of Rural Studies; and Antipode. He co-edited, with Ruth Lane, Material Geographies of Household Sustainability (Ashgate, 2011), and with Barbara Pini and Lia Bryant, Sexuality, Rurality and Geography (Lexington, 2013).

Dr Scott McKinnon is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Western Sydney, working on the project ‘Queering disasters in the Antipodes: investigating the experiences of LGBTI people in natural disasters’. He obtained his PhD from the University of Technology, Sydney, in 2012 and investigates the role of cinema in the emergence of gay male community, culture and identity in Sydney from 1950 to 2010. He has published in the fields of histories of sexuality, memory studies, cinema studies and cultural geography. Scott has previously worked as a Research Officer in the School of Social Sciences and Psychology at the University of Western Sydney and in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University.

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ABSTRACT TRANSLATIONS

Queerificar los desastres: sobre la necesidad de dar cuenta de las experiencias LGBTI en los contextos de los desastres naturals

Este artı́culo busca queerificar la investigación y las polı́ticas en relación a los desastres

naturales, sus impactos humanos, su manejo y la respuesta a ellos. Los impactos humanos

de los desastres naturales varı́an entre los distintos grupos humanos. Afirmamos que un

grupo mayormente ausente de las agendas académicas y polı́ticas es el de las minorı́as

sexuales y de género, o las poblaciones lesbianas, gays, bisexuales, transgénero/

transexuales e intersexuales (LGBTI). Para demostrar que estas minorı́as tienen

experiencias particulares que necesitan ser abordadas, revisamos crı́ticamente cinco

estudios de caso que comprenden la limitada investigación académica y de polı́ticas sobre

poblaciones LGBTI en desastres hasta la fecha. A partir de esto, ofrecemos algunas formas

especı́ficas para continuar la investigación queer en desastres que da cuenta de las

vulnerabilidades, necesidades y capacidades de resistencia de las poblaciones LGBTI. De

esta manera, reconocemos e instamos a los investigadores, a quienes hacen las polı́ticas y

las agencias de asistencia a reconocer que las poblaciones LGBTI no son homogéneas y

tienen diferentes necesidades causadas en función de las intersecciones de los recursos

socioeconómicos, el género, la raza/etnia, la edad y la localización regional o nacional.

Palabras claves: poblaciones LGBTI; queer; desastres naturales; resistencia; vulnerabilidad

酷儿化灾难：解释LGBTI社群在自然灾害脉络中的经验之需求

本文寻求酷儿化与自然灾害及其对人类的冲击、管理和回应有关的研究及政策。 自然灾害对人类的冲击，在不同的社会群体之间存在着差异。我们主张，其中一 个被学术及政策议程广泛忽略的群体便是性与性别的少数群体，抑或男女同性恋 者、双性恋者、跨性／性别与中间性（LGBTI）社群。为了证明这些群体拥有必 须被处理的特殊经验，我们将批判性地回顾至今针对灾害中的LGBTI社群的学术 及政策研究中仅有的五个案例。于此之上，我们将进一步提供部分的特定方法给 酷儿灾害研究来解释LGBTI族群的脆弱性、需求和恢復力。藉此，我们认可并敦 促研究者、政策制定者和协助单位认识到LGBTI族群并非是同质的，且因社会经 济资源、性别、种族／族裔、年龄与区域或国家区位的交错而产生不同的需求。

关键词：LGBTI族群；酷儿；自然灾害；恢復力；脆弱性

918 D. Dominey-Howes et al.