Post-Earthquake Community Capacity and Vulnerability Reduction at the Small-scale Local Level: Collective Narratives from Greece, Japan and New Zealand

Communities are often overlooked in course of disaster recovery planning, particularly in the area of social capital resources that may increase the collective's resilience to risks and hazards. Collective narratives are a form of social capital used by community members to interpret their circumstances and decide on courses of action. Community-level collective narratives in disaster studies are an example of a focus on pre-event mitigation rather than post-event response. Study is required to determine how narratives can be used in post-event response. The study of the post-disaster activities of affected communities needs further attention in order to enable the improvement of community recovery. Disaster resilience through measures and preparation before the disaster event, may best serve the community's needs. The purpose of this research will be to explore what collective narratives from the victims of localized earthquake events reveal about community capacity and vulnerability reduction at the small-scale local level. Collective narratives can shape the recovery strategies that individuals adopt for disaster preparedness. The research method and design in this study will be qualitative and narrative in nature. The goal of this qualitative methodology is to understand, describe, and interpret experiences that may be used to answer research questions. The participants for this study were recruited from populations living in three earthquake-affected areas: The Tohoku region of Japan, Kefalonia, Greece, and Christchurch, New Zealand. These locations were selected due to recent earthquake experiences and extensive media attention and coverage that could facilitate research and interview methods. A sample of 12 survivors of localized earthquake events were recruited to serve as respondents for the study. This strategy relied on qualitative survivor viewpoints, dependent on recollections of the earthquake events. The findings of this study based on the narratives show that nature of community and governmental capacity to reduce vulnerability and respond to earthquake events was varied, despite all respondent locations being subject to periodic seismic events. Respondents observed differing levels of both government and community capacity to provide for civil needs after earthquake events, as well as similarly varied levels of community assistance to residents in need, after the disasters. The implications are that planning and effort within a community can allow for the development of small-scale capacity to augment government efforts or mitigate government failures. Further research is required to determine applicability to other cultural paradigms, and types of disaster events.