The Emotional Context of Higher Education Community Engagement J
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The Emotional Context of Higher Education Community Engagement J. Ashleigh Ross and Randy Stoecker Abstract Higher education community engagement has an emotional context, especially when it focuses on people who have been traumatized by oppression, exploitation, and exclusion. The emotional trauma may be multiplied many times when those people are also dealing with the unequally imposed consequences of disasters. This paper is based on interviews with residents of the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans who experienced various forms of higher education community engagement in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The results are surprising. First, residents most appreciated the sense of emotional support they received from service learners and volunteers, rather than the direct service those outsiders attempted to engage in. Second, residents did not distinguish between traditional researchers and community-based researchers, and perceived researchers in general as insensitive to community needs. The article explores the implications of these findings for preparing students and conducting research in any context involving emotional trauma. The practices of higher education community The Case of the Lower 9th Ward engagement—service learning, community-based The Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans is east research, and similar practices going under and down river of the central city and the French different labels—have in common their focus on Quarter. Landowners originally built plantations people who are suffering from exclusion, oppres- in long strips extending from the river to the sion, and exploitation in contemporary society. Bayou Bienvenue for river access, and located In essence, the targets of our service are people plantation houses on the highest elevations. After experiencing trauma of various kinds. It does not slavery ended, the higher area transitioned into a require a deficit approach (McKnight, 1996) to business district, and wealthy residents built on understand that people denied access to the this natural levee, while freed black men and wom- quality of life enjoyed by those of us accorded en settled the back areas of swamps and wilder- dignified and fairly paid work, safe streets, and ness. Human activity led to large-scale deteriora- public voice will experience those conditions on tion of coastal wetlands and made low-lying areas an emotional level. In fact, the most important of New Orleans more vulnerable to flooding (Day, consideration for our engagement may be the Boesch, Clairain, & Kemp, 2007) where minority emotional trauma of such circumstances. populations, due to discriminatory housing prac- How prepared are community-engaged tices, were more likely to live (Colten, 2006). The scholars to understand and empathize with, construction of canals further decreased the storm rather than exacerbate, the emotional trauma of protection qualities of the wetlands and cut the oppression, exclusion, and exploitation? And how Lower 9th Ward’s land connection to New Orleans important is it for us to do so? We focus on higher proper (Germany, 2007; The Data Center, 2014) education community engagement in the Lower creating a community that has experienced isola- 9th Ward following Hurricane Katrina. There tion and neglect from the rest of the city (Germany, has been perhaps no group of people more subject 2007). Residents of the area felt like the backwater to higher education community engagement than of New Orleans (Langhorst & Cockerham, 2008). the people of New Orleans and especially of the The consequences of this history became clear Lower 9th Ward. Uncountable college students in 1965 during Hurricane Betsy (Bullard, 2007, have spent spring breaks, summers, and some- when the levee failed along the Industrial Canal, times semesters in New Orleans, gutting houses, flooding 80 percent of the Lower 9th Ward, strand- running surveys, and doing all manner of other ing people on their roofs and leading to 81 deaths projects. It is important to understand, however, (The Data Center, 2014). Many Lower 9th Ward that the context in which these students were residents did not view Hurricane Betsy merely as working was not simply that of a natural disaster. a natural disaster but suspected the government Vol. 9, No. 2 —JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND SCHOLARSHIP—Page 7 intentionally blew up the levee along the Industrial the numbers of volunteers in the Lower 9th Ward Canal to save other parts of the city (Bullard, 2007; but many organizations and academic institutions Colten, 2007), which actually happened in 1927 partnered with the community. By 2012 at least (Barry, 2007). 15 organizations had formed to coordinate Even though the area suffered from Hurricane volunteers working within the Lower 9th Ward Betsy and white flight, it also boasted one of the community. When asked how many volunteers highest home ownership rates in the city. Corner their Lower 9th Ward organizations facilitated, stores, personal gardens, and local hunting and community leaders responded with a range fishing opportunities supplied many residents’ of numbers from 3,000 to 50,000. Volunteers needs. The Lower 9th Ward has never had a bank, participated in gutting homes, mowing lawns, and but residents created a local subsistence-based numerous other tasks for individual homeowners economy (Ross & Zepeda, 2011) with a vibrant and community spaces. These efforts lent credibility community of active social aid and pleasure clubs, to the Lower 9th Ward’s rebuilding efforts and including the local Mardi Gras Indians tribe—a put attention on the plight of the residents trying central component of the African American Mardi to rebuild. Gras. Neighbors knew each other and extended Not all of the attention was altruistic. family members often lived within blocks of each “Voluntouring” became a popular description for other (Jackson, 2006). people going to New Orleans through an alter- Hurricane Katrina exposed the effects of pov- native break or church program to do a service erty, class, political decision-making, community project and have fun in the city. Large organizations structure, and discriminatory land use practices and research groups came in but provided limited (Pastor, Bullard, Boyce, Fothergill, Morello-Frosch, assistance to community residents (Pyles, 2009). & Wright, 2006; Yodmani, 2001; Cannon, 1994) It was the place to be for movies, documentaries, in creating unequal vulnerability to disaster public art projects, books, and studies. Tour (Kellman, 2011). When New Orleans mayor Ray buses continually drove through with people Nagin ordered mandatory evacuation for the snapping pictures while residents went about the entire population, the main evacuation method task of rebuilding. These least altruistic visitors of personal cars was not available to many in the are clearly insensitive to the emotional trauma Lower 9th Ward, where, in 2000, 32.4 percent of experienced by the residents. But how did those residents did not have a vehicle (The Data Center, acting from more altruistic motives influence the 2014). Thus, many of the residents attempted to trauma felt by residents? This question requires ride out the storm. When multiple levees failed, learning more about the emotional trauma created the most powerful and deepest water was in the by the intersection of oppression and disaster. Lower 9th Ward. The residents could not occupy their homes for six months (Colten, 2007), and The Emotional Trauma of Disaster could only visit in daytime. Many were relocated and Discrimination far away. The Lower 9th Ward was the only com- It may go without mention that natural munity forcibly prevented from resettling, even disasters are emotionally traumatic events, but it though other areas of the city sustained similar is useful to establish how they are traumatic. For flooding damage (Langhorst & Cockerham, 2008). the emotional impacts may vary in ways that are Residents felt forgotten and neglected by their relevant for this analysis. A review of studies on own country, and the labeling of them as “refugees” emotional trauma and disaster contexts from 1981 reinforced this notion. They had to make a strong to 2001 found that youth seemed to suffer most. and immediate case to rebuild if they were ever But among adults, women, ethnic minorities, to occupy their homes again. One of the first and people of middle age, those experiencing more most significant sources of help for the residents severe disasters, those already having second- came from individuals and organized volunteers, ary stressors, and those with weak or declining including academic groups that came down to psychosocial resources were likely to feel more do research and planning exercises. The very first traumatized (Norris, Friedman, Watson, Byrne, house occupied after Katrina was the headquarters Diaz, & Kaniasty, 2002). In a companion article, of Common Ground, a volunteer-based grassroots the research emphasized the importance of early organization that provided rebuilding and legal intervention for people in disaster contexts (Norris, assistance to residents. No data are available on Friedman, & Watson, 2002). In this research, the Vol. 9, No. 2 —JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND SCHOLARSHIP—Page 8 authors included mass violence in their definition cussing the effects of service learning on students of disaster. Neighborhoods in Chicago that suffer (Warren, 2012). The lack of focus on community dozens of shootings in a weekend would qualify, outcomes also appears in our definitions.