Research Ideas and Outcomes :
Research Idea
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Corresponding author: Pia Hollenbach (pia.hollenbach@unil.ch), Monika Goetzoe (monika.goetzoe@zhaw.ch), Malith de Silva (malithsilva10@gmail.com)
Academic editor: Editorial Secretary
Received: 01 Feb 2022 | Accepted: 26 Apr 2022 | Published: 01 Aug 2022
© 2022 Pia Hollenbach, Monika Goetzoe, Malith de Silva
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Hollenbach P, Goetzoe M, de Silva M (2022) Situating social work within disaster governance. Assessing the agency of social work as a bridging agent and its professionalization in disaster governance. Research Ideas and Outcomes 8: e81568. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.8.e81568
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The SARS-COV-2 pandemic created a serious shock and surprise to the disaster governance mechanisms in existence. Even the most advanced disaster governance systems in the world struggled to govern, respond, communicate risk and build resilience against the pandemic. The overall management – locally and globally- showed that relevant stakeholders such as social workers that work frontline but also within disaster management relevant fields, were not heart nor taken their potentials and knowledge into consideration to sustainably set up a disaster management and responds strategy. Applying a comparative multi-sited ethnographic approach, the study aims to highlight the potential agency of social work as a bridging agent to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of existing disaster governance and communication architecture and improve the resilience of communities to cope with the socio-ecological complexity of future disasters, similar to SARS-COV-2. Impact will be created in four main areas: (1) Actors in disaster governance will be educated using the new knowledge produced on contextualized disaster governance and communication strategies and impacts on community resilience; (2) Enhanced capacity and awareness of professional social work practitioners on their role/s as bridging agents within the disaster governance architecture to enhance disaster risk communication and community resilience; (3) Improved capacity for decision and policy-making and strengthened agency of social work in the field of disaster governance through the introduction of professional development training and the ToolKit SW2BRIDGE; and (4) Improved social work education at the university level through the introduction of a post-graduate programme on the application of social work in disasters.
disaster governance, disaster communication, agency of social work, comparative ethnographic case study
“The world is in the grip of the most severe health crisis of our time”
WHO Director-General Dr Ghebreyesus, 7th April 2020)
The SARS-COV-2 pandemic created a serious shock and surprise to the disaster governance mechanisms in existence. Even the most advanced disaster governance systems in the world struggled to govern, respond, communicate risk and build resilience against the pandemic. Nevertheless, countries like Taiwan, New Zealand or Finland demonstrated better-established response systems integrating innovative communication or ‘bridging agents’ having the ability, capability and accessibility to communicate and facilitate between different and diverse stakeholders – community, administration, policy. By implementing an international comparison, the overall aim of the proposed project is disclosing the specifications of the disaster governance mechanisms in Switzerland, Finland and Sri Lanka and to understand the agency of professional social work practice as a bridging agent to enhance and better equip the current disaster governance architecture and mechanisms to reduce disaster risks, increase community resilience, and advocate for the most vulnerable groups of the society.
The specific objectives of the project are (a) to understand the dynamics and inter-relational aspects of disaster governance - institutional architectural, disaster communication - and how they provide an enabling or inhibiting environment for achieving effective Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), adaptive disaster leadership and resilient communities; (b) to comprehend agency of social work and how it is manifested in different forms of engagement and positionalities in disaster governance through first hand experiences of professional social work practitioners and service users; and (c) to enhance the capacities of professional social work practitioners through co-learning and developing educational syllabus and practical frameworks on social work in disasters.
The proposed research is placed within the academic work on disaster - social work nexus that emerged as a debate since the 1970’s in various academic fields such as social work, geography, political science, sociology and hazard studies. The overall objective of the research project lies in the academic writing and literature of disaster governance and social work.
DISASTER GOVERNANCE: Disaster governance is often defined as a field of practice that demands a multi-disciplinary approach as its key components - disaster preparedness, disaster risk reduction, resilience and disaster risk communication- require an array of expert contributions (
To achieve and improve preparedness, important measures are strongly linked to communication. Communication sits at the core in the hierarchy of disasters, “[t]his means that (a) communication or the lack of it can cause crises, and (b) when crisis threatens or occurs, communication is central to averting, containing/resolving it, and/or leading the way to restoration” (
SOCIAL WORK AND DISASTERS: The history of social work responding to the needs of the most vulnerable, marginalized and oppressed populations is long (
Lena Dominelli (
Nikku (
Based on the evidence presented in the literature review the project identified the following research gap:
ResearchGap
The lack of sufficient in-depth empirical and comparative studies proving the agency of professional social work practice to strengthen the existing disaster governance architecture
The proposed action-oriented project will be able to close the existing gap and support ongoing international efforts to introduce community-centric disaster governance mechanisms that in its core objective corresponds with the mandate of social work as an agent “… that promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance wellbeing, it intervenes at the point where people interact with their environment using theories of human behavior and social systems as well as upholding principles of human rights and social justice” (
The overall aim of the project is to understand the agency of professional social work practice as a bridging agent to enhance and better equip the current disaster governance architecture and mechanisms to reduce disaster risks, increase community resilience, and advocate for the most vulnerable groups of the society in Switzerland, Finland and Sri Lanka
The research objectives are:
To achieve these objectives the project asks the overall research question:
How do disaster governance strategies established under the Sendai Framework shape and influence the agency (knowledgeability, capability, positionality) of social work to intervene as a bridging agent in disaster governance- disaster communication, disaster risk reduction, and community resilience?
The analytical framework is based on two conceptual pillars:
The two conceptual pillars are briefly introduced in the sections below succeeded by the resulting sub-research questions.
Institutional and Communication Architecture(ICA): Institutional and communication architecture (ICA) is understood as the constellation of governmental agencies and non-governmental stakeholders, legal and policy regimes and political forces in a given spatial and temporal context. The research project adopts a perspective of governance that is shaped by the local embeddedness as ‘everyday governance’ (
Research Question ICA
Has the countries followed the Sendai Framework of DRR? What are the policies, projects and practices of local authorities in regard to disaster governance, communication and DRR? How is the hierarchical or decentralized institutional architecture of disaster governance and communication between the national, state/provincial and municipal levels established? What is the level of interaction with other levels of government, other municipalities, political parties, residence association, NGOs, CBOs and communities
Agency and Stakeholder Analysis: Social work agency (SWA) is understood as the capacity and capability to change for better or improve an unfavorable context within an existing architecture. Assessing the agency of the social work profession within the contextualized disaster governance and communication architecture helps to map out their positioning and explore how social work engages, strategizes and maneuvers within. In line with Long (
Relevant sub-research questions are:
Research Question SWA
Who are relevant actors within the established disaster governance and communication systems? What is the relevance, positionality, agency of each actor? What are stakeholder interests in playing an active role in disaster management policy decision-making? What are the potentials of stakeholders to become bridging agents in DRR? How is agency linked to building resilient communities? What are the effects of established DRR and disaster communication on public perceptions of disaster? How public media is engaged as a relevant stakeholder in disaster communication?
CASE STUDY RESEARCH: The overall research strategy is based on a ‘multi-sited ethnographic’ approach (
Through comparison and contextualization of the analysis the proposed research intends to achieve its translation into policy recommendations and the development of a social work syllabus on disaster governance, risk communication, disaster risk reduction and resilient community development (Table
Switzerland |
Finland |
Sri Lanka |
|
National DRR strategy |
Decentralized (confederation, cantons, municipalities), financed through federal authority |
Decentralized (confederation, municipalities), financed through federal authority |
Centralized, executed through President and Army, financed through provincial authorities |
Population |
Homogeneous |
Homogeneous |
Heterogeneous |
Exposure to disasters |
Medium |
Low |
High |
SARS-COV-2 |
Gradual lockdown, mainstream media communication |
Immediate strict lockdown, innovative social media communication |
Immediate strict lockdown, weak communication, isolated process through Army |
Social work approach |
Individual Case Work |
Individual Case Work |
Community approach |
Research on Social work in disasters |
None |
Rapeli (2017) |
None |
CO-CREATIVE AND INTER-DISCIPLINARY RESEARCH: The research project is designed to be co-creative and inter-disciplinary. It will be integrated and enriched through colleagues at the ZHAW School of Social Work, Institute of Diversity and Social Integration, and aims to hire a PhD and post-doctoral researcher from neighboring disciplines interested in the theme – theoretically, practically or empirically - complementing knowledge gaps and regional expertise (Table
Name |
Designation |
Responsibility and Tasks |
Hollenbach |
Principal Applicant |
Guiding the research and field work of the overall project, while providing particular supervision and guidance to the PhDs; (re)establish and strengthen partnerships with universities in case study countries, political networks and research centers which will help to facilitate during the research process; Conduct qualitative research in all country sites; guide and facilitate writing of academic articles, policy briefs and other output for communication; coordinate communication and exploitation activities (policy stakeholder meetings, etc.); support comparative study of all cases |
Assistant I |
PhD Student 80% (CH) |
Conduct in-depth qualitative research in two country sites and co-participate in the third; Carry out all necessary activities related to the research process (administration, organizing of interviews, co-organization of participatory stakeholder meetings, etc.); writing of PhD related academic-articles and supporting other communication and dissemination activities; support comparative study of all cases |
Assistant II |
Post-doc Student (SL) (60%) |
Lead the process of qualitative research in SL; coordinate and support research in SL; strengthen important research related networks in SL; facilitate participatory stakeholder meetings (community, policy, practice, academics, media); coordinate dissemination activities; support comparative study of all cases |
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: The project has two methodological strengths: a qualitative, co-creative and participatory multi-method and comparative case study approach. The visual data capture will feed into further dissemination and exploitation opportunities and the innovative translation of findings into educational and policy products improving the sustainability of research outcomes. The project strongly attends to ethical issues, including a grounding in decolonial approaches to social science research.
Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis: Qualitative data collection will include a mixture of desk-based research (ICA), multisided-ethnographic research including innovative methods such as audio-visual ethnography (ICA, SWA), interviews, case studies and focus group discussions (FGD) (ICA, SWA) and textual analysis. Participatory research methods will involve a collective interrogation and reflection on the relationship between the researcher and the research participants in situations of participant observation and ethnography, as well as in cases of co-creative stakeholder dialogues and participatory workshops with community members and other relevant stakeholders within DRR.
Risk and Alternatives: In the case of further travel restrictions or other disaster measures due to SARS-COV-2, the project will transfer the interviews into the virtual space orienting and applying methods of the Art of Hosting to host and harvest meaningful conversations virtually (
Institutional Architecture of disaster governance and communication: Mapping and analyzing the disaster institutional and communication architecture will be based on systematically reviewing existing literature (referring to all the available secondary sources such as acts, guidelines, frameworks, reports, operational plans, news reports, etc.), as well as expert interviews (EI), for which the local level authorities will form an entry and starting point to trace and map out their formal and informal interactions with other authorities, political parties, private sector agents, community-based organization, and NGOs and other institutions relevant in disaster governance. The mapping of architectures will be coupled with the Stakeholder mapping based on episodical semi-structured interviews with political actors, policy makers and inter-/national development agencies in order to understand the strategies, rational, and discourses of disaster governance, DRR and resilience.
Risk and Alternatives: The above proposed approaches for the expert interviews and other stakeholder meetings, workshops and interviews can be applied here. For the literature review and textual analysis there are no risks involved.
Comparative and Country Studies Approach: The project is grounded in a strong country studies approach, emphasizing the importance of local knowledge, in-depth country expertise, and the understanding of particular histories, cultures and political contexts. A key aspect of the project is an integrated comparative research design that provides in-depth knowledge of how institutional architecture of disaster governance and communication and the agency of social work within DRR, influencing community resilience and preparedness.
Risk and Alternatives: Even if continued disaster measures restrict travel, the project is implementable as all country cases will be assigned to one of the researchers involved and longer stays within respective countries allowing to conduct research.
The proposed project will lead to impact in the following three main areas:
❖ Actors in disaster management will be informed by the new knowledge produced on contextualized disaster governance and communication strategies and impacts on community resilience, which will have an impact on their conduct and policy choices;
❖ Enhance capacity and built awareness for decision- and policy-making and strengthened the agency of professional social work practitioners inthe field of disaster management through integrating and positioning their capacity as bridging agent through the development of professional development offers and the ToolKit SW2BRIDGE;
❖ Improved social work education at university level through the introduction of a post-graduate program on the application of social work in disaster contexts.
Table
1 |
Addressed problem areas: Government agencies have limited knowledge on socio-political and cultural contextualized disaster governance strategies, disaster communication structures and community resilience. Relevant stakeholders have limited knowledge of the consequences of discourses on disaster, especially with regard to disaster preparedness, community resilience and adaptation capacity. They therefore cannot intervene in or shape them effectively or sustainably through their conduct and policy choices, which limits the establishment of effective preparedness measures, disaster governance, and resilient communities. |
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Proposed Project |
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…Impact |
Government stakeholders and Social Work professionals at a) local, b) national, and c) global level have better knowledge and understanding of: - the effects and influences of non-contextualised disaster governance on current policy-making - the effects of disaster communication on community resilience and disaster perceptions - the importance of social work agency as bridging agents to strengthen disaster governance and DRR. This enables decision-makers to create more effective and efficient disaster policies that emphasis on preventive measures to strengthen community resilience, minimize social and environmental injustice and vulnerabilities and the complex interlinked mechanisms of both. |
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…Outputs |
…Outcomes |
…Scope of outputs and outcomes |
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Series of policy briefs |
- Enhanced understanding of the rational and functioning of disaster governance rational - Enhanced understanding of contextualization - Enhanced understanding of consequences of weak disaster communication on preparedness and resilience - Better information for practitioners on the agency and importance of bridging agents within DRR |
- Track citations - Number of direct distributions of policy briefs - Number of exchanges on policy briefs |
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Multi-stakeholder fora and events (partners from policy, practice, research) |
- SW2BRIDGE findings and research results enter into multi-stakeholder policy discourses - Stakeholders from practice, policy, and research productively exchange and form new alliances - Practitioners learn to address and expose their own biases, and gain immediate practical understanding of disaster governance and communication - Policymakers are able to integrate new knowledge into their conduct and policy choices |
- multi-stakeholder fora in FIN, CH, SL - elaborated multi-stakeholder report |
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Academic journals and conference participation |
- Enhanced comparative contextualized research on disaster governance and communication, and social work in disasters - Contribution to evidence-based disaster studies - Enriched international discussions on social work as bridging agent in disaster governance and social work agency in disaster work and policy-making |
- Number of published academic articles - Number of downloads of open access articles - Number of presentations in international conferences |
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2 |
Addressed problem areas: Social Work – practice and research - has limited agency within the field of disaster governance, disaster communication and disaster resilience. Furthermore, the awareness of social work of the excellent positioning of their theoretical and practice knowledge within the field is not exploited sufficiently. Social work is not strategizing strongly to use full potentials on their agency as a bridging agent within disaster governance and communication strategies, and DRR. |
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Proposed Project |
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…Impact |
Social Work professionals – research and practice – have improved awareness and are better integrated in the field of disaster governance and disaster communication on local, inter/national and global level. Social work professionalized in the field of disaster and is taking agency in implementation of disaster preparedness, disaster governance and communication. Social work is recognized as a strong bridging agent between community – inter/national government and policy – disaster stakeholders. Community resilience is improved through social work practices. |
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…Outputs |
…Outcomes |
…Scope of outputs and outcomes |
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Series of policy briefs |
- Enhanced understanding of the rational and functioning of disaster governance - Enhanced understanding of consequences of weak disaster communication and preparedness - Better information for practitioners on the agency and importance of bridging agents |
- Track citations - Number of direct distributions of policy briefs - Number of exchanges on policy briefs |
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ToolKit SW2BRIDGE |
- Improved and easy access to knowledge on social work in disasters - Enabled capacity to design integrated and resilient disaster governance and communication structures - Improved interlinked coordination among public administration, civil society and social work |
- Number of downloads of ToolKit - Number of participants in dissemination workshops of ToolKit |
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Academic journals and conference participation |
- Enhanced evidence-based disaster governance debates - Contribution to evidence-based disaster governance and communication studies - Enhance theoretical and practice-oriented debates on Social Work in disasters |
- Number of published articles - Number of presentations in international conferences |
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3 |
Addressed problem areas: Social Work Education has no established stand-alone syllabus on ‘Social work in disaster governance’. Future social work practitioners are not prepared to position within the highly competitive field of disaster management and underestimate their excellency within. In addition, practitioners are not well prepared in translating their practical knowledge into policy-oriented debates taking up leading positions on inter/national level and to become explicitly political. |
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Proposed Project |
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…Impact |
Improved social work education in the field of disaster, disaster governance, disaster communication and relevant adjoining fields such as international humanitarianism, governmentality of aid, politics of international cooperation |
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…Outputs |
…Outcomes |
…Scope of outputs and outcomes |
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Syllabus: ‘Social Work in disasters’ |
- Enhanced professionalization of Social Work practitioners in disaster governance - Improved political understanding of social work practice in disasters, impacts on policy-making and DRR - Expanded range of internationalized social work education and research |
- Number of participants in the program - Number of exchanges with other universities (international) |
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MOOC: ‘Social Work in disasters’ |
- Sustainability of educational outcomes - Increased outreach and exploitation of the research findings - Improved accessibility to research and educational outcomes |
- Number of participants in MOOC / MOOC users |
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Academic journals and conference participation |
- Engaged exchanges on professionalization of social work in disaster governance - Improved professional confidence of social work in disasters |
- Number of published articles - Number of presentations in international conferences - Number of public talks |
The Author(s) do thank all who supported the writing process in providing ideas, input and feedback. We also want to thank the Advisory Board for their contributions and feedback and willingness to continue to support the suggested research idea.