Theorizing a Social Repair Orientation to Disaster Recovery: Developing Insights for Disaster Recovery Policy and Programming

Abstract

This paper conceptualizes a social repair orientation to disaster recovery for policy makers and programmers. It locates the concept of social repair in a variety of academic disciplines and identifies two distinct understandings of social repair: resumption of everyday life and re-humanization/re-constituting the self. The paper then theorizes the agency of memory, hope and resistance as strategic tools for achieving social repair. Additionally, social learning is used to describe the use of these tools by disaster survivors to achieve social repair. Finally, the paper delineates the differences between a social repair orientation to disaster recovery and existing disaster recovery praxis, offering guidance for policy makers and programmers.