Mark Lincoln Photograph 191

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Shipping containers protect the road from rockfall in Sumner. One of the containers has been spray-painted, "Sumner rocks".

Mark Lincoln Photograph 192

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Shipping containers protect the road from rockfall in Sumner. On the cliffs above, damaged houses teeter on the edge of the cliff. One of the containers has been decorated with an artwork.

Mark Lincoln Photograph 194

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A "no swimming" sign on the beach at Sumner. In the background are shipping containers protecting the road from rockfall, and above a damaged house teeters on the edge of a cliff.

Mark Lincoln Photograph 195

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Shipping containers protect the road from rockfall in Sumner. On the cliffs above, damaged houses teeter on the edge of the cliff. One of the containers has been decorated with an artwork, and another has been spray-painted, "Sumner rocks".

BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0569

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Cargo Bar in a container".

BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0571

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Cargo Bar in a container".

BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0570

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Cargo Bar in a container".

Urban resilience: Bouncing back, coping, thriving

Research Papers, Lincoln University

The recent Christchurch earthquakes provide a unique opportunity to better understand the relationship between pre-disaster social fault-lines and post-disaster community fracture. As a resident of Christchurch, this paper presents some of my reflections on the social structures and systems, activities, attitudes and decisions that have helped different Canterbury ‘communities’ along their road to recovery, and highlights some issues that have, unfortunately, held us back. These reflections help answer the most crucial question asked of disaster scholarship: what can recovery agencies (including local authorities) do - both before and after disaster - to promote resilience and facilitate recovery. This paper – based on three different definitions of resilience - presents a thematic account of the social recovery landscape. I argue that ‘coping’ might best be associated with adaptive capacity, however ‘thriving’ or ‘bounce forward’ versions of resilience are a function of a community’s participative capacity.