Forage Center News
Sustainability in Disaster Response – Understanding the Progression of Vulnerability
9/23/22, 4:00 AM
In this Forage Center Conversation, Maritza Jauregui explores integrating short-term efforts into medium- and long-term efforts.
The concept of 'sustainability' extends much more broadly than an idea of environmental conservation or stewardship, and includes longer-term social needs and human-environmental balance. Dr. Maritza Jauregui, Associate Professor of Sustainability at Stockton University (Galloway, NJ), highlighted how post-disaster actors, including humanitarian workers, can think about how their shorter-term efforts integrate into medium- or longer-term impacts not only on the environmental, but social environment. Although "urgency of now" is an important factor in addressing needs after a disaster, those activities also work into longer-term narratives of justice and also systems of socio-environmental balance. When humanitarian organizations do leave, what impact have they left behind, especially when it comes to meeting the needs of future generations? Where do peacebuilding organizations pick up from where humanitarian efforts left off, and how do those earlier activities end up being incorporated into narratives of "peace"? All questions for professionals, students, and academics in fields related to humanitarian work, conflict resolution and transformation, and peacebuilding to ponder.
Did you miss the conversation? Watch it here, and catch up on previous Forage Center Conversations here.