Re-framing Vulnerability: Community Recovery and Resilience in Australia through an Intersectional Gender Transformative Lens*

This conversation was held on the unceeded Sovereign lands of Yuggera and Turrbal people in Meanjin, also known as Brisbane, where we are grateful to continue to share stories and exchange knowledge on what is and always will be Aboriginal Land.

Here is an overview of the conversation reflecting on the panel. (Writers lens: Ashleigh Brady's pronouns are she/her, settler, white, able-bodied, middle-class, cis-gender woman, and an employee in NSW Government as well as a volunteer committee member with the Australasian Women in Emergencies Network).*AWE recognises the lived experiences of women (inclusive of an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics).

[Disclaimer: We are only scratching the surface of very complex concepts, acknowledging the depth of existing knowledge, literature and diverse lived experiences that we haven't captured in this conversation.]

In this 1 hour panel conversation, the re-frame of vulnerability is considering how we can better incorporate lived experiences of diverse communities into disaster planning and processes. Eliminating the idea people are inherently vulnerable or susceptible to disaster impacts, and recognising all individuals have resilience and coping capacities that are dynamic and can be better harnessed and supported. In this conversation we acknowledge how local community members have worked to facilitate and lead solutions, and teach and guide their wider community and other stakeholders before, during and after disaster. This builds on a rights-based approach with lived experience perspectives to challenge assumptions that can falsely categorise and label individual identities and their needs.

The panellists reflected that when we have authentic Inclusion of diverse voices, we better understand diverse individual experiences and their coping and adaptive capacities in disasters. We acknowledged that disaster management needs to centre people and their everyday experiences, to begin to unpack the complex interconnected structural factors and systems that are creating social vulnerabilities or risks, where these vulnerabilities and conditions are then exacerbated in a disaster.

The panellists all shared the different ways they understand and use the term vulnerable, considering what this means for the people in communities we are working alongside. In some cases it was communicated to reflect disproportionate impacts and risks people face due to a range of factors and experiences including disability. The term was avoided in other community-facing contexts, where panellists shared people did not resonate with the term and do not see themselves as vulnerable, acknowledging these terms can be used to reinforce colonial, paternalistic, deficit framings particularly when used in First Nations Communities.

The lens of intersectionality allowed us to speak to the complexity of including diversity, and the risks of homogenising and oversimplifying people and their needs through terms like ‘vulnerable’. We consider how terms and categories that attempt to put people into boxes can ‘other’ or exclude individuals experiences and reinforce vulnerabilities. We reflected on the other fantastic community-centred sessions at the conference, and the realities where these sessions were run separately at the same time, reflecting the siloed or disparate ways we approach inclusion currently, and the need to connect inclusive approaches better to represent intersectional lived experiences.

Intersectionality refers to the ways in which intersecting factors and characteristics alongside systems of disadvantage and exclusion can expose people to overlapping forms of marginalisation or disadvantage. Intersectionality recognises for example that one person can experience disadvantage or discrimination due to their gender, their perceived physical or mental ability, ethnicity or skin colour, racialised identity and their sexual orientation all at one time, which all compound and can create additional barriers. By understanding the complexities of these multiplying forms of discrimination, we can better address the root causes and drivers of risk, and systemic inequities that contribute to vulnerabilities in the face of disasters.

This also stands to reflect the privileges within homogenised groupings like with 'Women', where some women hold power in places others do not. We are seeking to avoid the legacies of oversimplified binary approaches to inclusion, where recent progress from gender inclusion or equality programs has failed to consider intersectional lived experiences, and has shown to improve outcomes for mainly for white, middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual, cis-gendered women (see DCA, CARM). This is why we need to move beyond single issue approaches or solutions and meet the community in the reality and complexity of their experience, to benefit those people we are missing with simplistic inclusion practices.

Our panel shared stories of community-owned, led and centred recovery and resilience work, through programs including the Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction Program, and the Red Cross First Nations Recovery Programs. Our panellists spoke to the importance of recognising people know what they need, and shared stories of communities coming together to support each other before and in disaster. We also reflected on ways to meaningfully engage with our diverse communities, and the importance of practitioners or people supporting/working alongside community need to be conscious of their bias and be aware of how you identify and seek community leaders.

Stories shared about the Red Cross First Nations Recovery team's work reinforced the importance of local trusted relationships and connections built from shared lived experiences, in ensuring First Nations community members feel supported and safe to leave their home and go to an evacuation centre, supported by First Nations Volunteers.

We also spoke of the importance of peer leadership, with peer leadership approaches reflecting understanding of diverse range of experiences of disability in particular, and the different types of engagement that is required responding to different experiences, from different elements of visual tools and sensory/stimulus in delivery methods.

The broader benefits for everyone through inclusive planning was recognised through the curb-cut effect example. The curb cut effect exemplifies the accessible benefits for all, after designing to seemingly specific needs, in this case wheelchair access across roads and with the cutting of curb or gutters removing the step. This accessibility feature provides benefits for the broader community including parents with prams, elderly people, cyclists and many more beyond wheelchair users.

This conversation calls on us to continue to improve our understanding of individual experiences and identities that shape different needs and capacities within our communities. We need to prioritise and centre these complex individual realities and experiences in everything we do, to resource and enable community to be the leaders and agents of change in disaster planning, strengthening equitable resilience leaving nobody behind.

*Term Explainers:

In this conversation the concepts are framed as below:

Vulnerability can be a challenging concept to understand because it tends to mean different things to different people and because it is often described using a variety of terms including ‘predisposition’, ‘fragility’, ‘weakness’, ‘deficiency’ or ‘lack of capacity’. We recognise there are many factors that drive vulnerability, in this context we are speaking of social vulnerability in disasters, which affects disproportionate risks and impacts to people in disasters. We need to recognise that historical underinvestment, disadvantage and marginalisation can place people at greater risk due to their race, gender, ability and other factors of difference, but we need to call out the deeper systems enforcing this disadvantage like racism and discrimination and structural violence.

Intersectionality in this conversation recognises intersecting factors and characteristics alongside systems of disadvantage and exclusion that individuals experience that lead to discrimination, (Social characteristics such as gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, and structures of exclusion like sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia and more etc.). This is not a tool to understand or articulate identity. By understanding the complexities of these intersecting marginalisations, we can better address the root causes and drivers of risk, like systemic inequities that contribute to vulnerabilities through limited capacities to cope and adapt in the face of disasters.

A concept cannot be stripped of its context, There are evolving understandings and uses of intersectionality, and I recognise it is grounded in the work of Kimberley Crenshaw and other Women of colour, reflecting the experiences and multiplied marginalisations.

By adopting a gender-transformative approach, we aim to challenge traditional binary (male/female) gender roles, promote gender equity, and empower women, gender-non-binary and gender-diverse individuals as leaders and agents of change in disaster-affected communities.