In 2010 and 2011, Aotearoa New Zealand was hit by a number of major disasters involving loss of human life and severe disruption to social, ecological and economic wellbeing. The Pike River mine explosions were closely followed by a sequence of major earthquakes in Christchurch, seismic events that have permanently altered the lives of thousands of people in our third largest city, the closure of the central business district and the effective abandonment of whole residential areas. In early October 2011, the ship, Rena, grounded on a reef off the port of Tauranga and threatened a major oil spill throughout the Bay of Plenty, where local communities with spiritual and cultural connections to the land depend on sea food as well as thrive on tourism. The Council for Social Work Education Aotearoa New Zealand (CSWEANZ), representing all the Schools of Social Work in New Zealand, held a ‘Disaster Curriculum’ day in November 2011, at which social workers and Civil Defence leaders involved in the Christchurch earthquakes, the Rena Disaster, Fiji floods and the Boxing Day tsunami presented their narrative experience of disaster response and recovery. Workshops discussed and identified core elements that participants considered vital to a social work curriculum that would enable social work graduates in a range of community and cultural settings to respond in safe, creative and informed ways. We present our core ideas for a social work disaster curriculum and consider a wide range of educational content based on existing knowledge bases and new content within a disaster framework. http://www.swsd-stockholm-2012.org/
Courage has remained an elusive concept to define despite having been in the English lexicon for hundreds of years. The Canterbury earthquake sequence that began in 2010 provided a unique context in which to undertake research that would contribute to further conceptualisation of courage. This qualitative study was undertaken in Christchurch, New Zealand, with adults over the age of 70 who experienced the Canterbury earthquakes and continued to live in the Canterbury region. The population group was chosen because it is an under researched group in post-disaster environments, and one that offers valuable insights because of members' length and breadth of life experiences, and likely reminiscent and reflective life stage. A constructivist grounded theory approach was utilised, with data collected through semi-structured focus groups and individual key informant interviews. The common adverse experience of the participants initially discussed was the earthquakes, which was followed by exploration of courage in their other lived experiences. Through an inductive process of data analysis, conceptual categories were identified, which when further analysed and integrated, contributed to a definition of courage. The definition was subsequently discussed with social work professionals who had remained working in the Canterbury region after experiencing the earthquakes. From the examples and the actions described within these, a process model was developed to support the application of courage. The model includes five steps: recognising an adverse situation, making a conscious decision to act, accessing sources of motivation, mastering emotion and taking action. Defining and utilising courage can help people to face adversity associated with everyday life and ultimately supports self-actualisation and self-development. Recommendations from the study include teaching about courage within social work education, utilising the process model within supervision, intentionally involving older adults in emergency management planning and developing specific social work tasks in hospital settings following a disaster.
In 2013 Becca Wood, Spatial Performance Practitioner, and Molly Mullen, Applied Theatre Practitioner, collaborated to create a short ambulatory performance with audio score for a group of drama educators attending a conference workshop on the possibilities of walking as performance. The performance was created remotely from the intended site: Rangi Ruru Girls’ School, in Christchurch, New Zealand. Following the destruction of the 2012 earthquake, this site was in a state of transformation and recovery. The performance walk attended to the histories, geographies and politics of this place, somatically, architecturally and socially. This paper engages with three critical questions: How might mediated listening and walking activate the coming together of bodies and place? What performative shifts occurred for the participants in the walk and workshop? How might we come to our senses? Through a performative practice of mediated site-based listening and walking, this paper is a reflection on the creative process and performance. We consider the potential for technologically mediated performance to offer new modes for learning and creative practice through interdisciplinary and evolving intermedial practices. http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/crde20/current AM - Accepted Manuscript
The author followed five primary (elementary) schools over three years as they responded to and began to recover from the 2010–2011 earthquakes in and around the city of Christchurch in the Canterbury region of New Zealand. The purpose was to capture the stories for the schools themselves, their communities, and for New Zealand’s historical records. From the wider study, data from the qualitative interviews highlighted themes such as children’s responses or the changing roles of principals and teachers. The theme discussed in this article, however, is the role that schools played in the provision of facilities and services to meet (a) physical needs (food, water, shelter, and safety); and (b) emotional, social, and psychological needs (communication, emotional support, psychological counseling, and social cohesion)—both for themselves and their wider communities. The role schools played is examined across the immediate, short-, medium-, and long-term response periods before being discussed through a social bonding theoretical lens. The article concludes by recommending stronger engagement with schools when considering disaster policy, planning, and preparation http://www.schoolcommunitynetwork.org/SCJ.aspx
The role of belonging in post-disaster environments remains an under-theorised concept, particularly regarding refugee populations. This paper presents a qualitative study with 101 refugee-background participants from varying communities living in Christchurch, New Zealand, about their perspectives and responses to the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010–11. Participants spoke of how a sense of belonging as individuals and as a wider community was important in the recovery effort, and highlighted the multiple ways in which they understood this concept. Their comments demonstrate how belonging can have contextual, chronological and gendered dimensions that can help inform effective and resonant disaster responses with culturally and linguistically diverse populations. This analysis also illustrates how the participants' perspectives of belonging shifted over time, and discusses the corresponding role of social work in supporting post-disaster recovery through the concepts of civic, ethno and ethnic-based belonging. AM - Accepted Manuscript
The quality of multi-owned residential buildings and the capability to maintain that quality into the future is important in preserving not only the monetary value of such housing (Lujanen, 2010) but also the quality of life for its residents. The aim of this paper is to examine the governance and decision-making rules and regulations as they relate to the undertaking of major repairs in multi-owned residential buildings in Finland and New Zealand with particular regard to the Finnish Limited Liability Housing Companies Act 2010 (LLHCA 2010) and the New Zealand Unit Titles Act 2010 (UTA 2010). Currently, major building repairs are topical issues in both countries; in Finland as a result of ageing buildings requiring major re-fitting of pipes and other infrastructure, and in New Zealand as a result of earthquake damage in Christchurch and Leaky Building Syndrome nationwide. Major repairs can be a significant financial burden to unit owners and collective decisions can be difficult to achieve. Interestingly, new legislation that governs multi-owned housing was enacted in both countries in 2010. The recent enactment of this legislation provides an opportunity to examine the UTA 2010 and LLHCA 2010 with regard to how they address major repairs, improvements in housing stock and the financing possibilities associated with these undertakings. More specifically this paper explores housing intensification (i.e. building up, out or alongside existing multi-owned residential buildings on commonly owned land) as a means of financing major repairs. The comparison of governance and decision-making in two different shared ownership systems with different histories and cultural contexts provides a chance to explore the possibilities and challenges that each country faces, and the potential to learn from each other’s practices and develop these further. In this regard the findings from this paper contribute to the academic literature (Bugden 2005; Easthope & Randolph 2009; Dupuis & Dixon 2010; Lujanen 2010; Easthope, Hudson & Randolph 2013) concerning to the governance of multi-owned housing as it relates to intensive housing development and its wider social and economic implications.
