UC Irvine

Climate change is strengthening the magnitude and increasing the frequency of disasters, meaning disaster risk reduction practitioners are facing greater challenges than ever, especially regarding inequity in disaster experiences. This thesis uses the case study of Hurricane Katrina to argue that abolition-based (rather than reform-based) frameworks more effectively address disparate impacts that marginalized communities experience after disasters in the United States. Scholars of environmental justice and climate change policy have worked extensively to capture the failings of U.S. disaster policy, with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans heavily documented in the literature as a strong example of structural racism and the failures of neoliberalism in disaster policy. However, existing disaster literature and policy have not adequately considered abolishing the structures responsible for creating disproportionate vulnerability and unjust disaster recovery. Abolitionists specifically seek to eliminate structures of oppression relevant to their goals and build more just systems in their place. With such a focus, and building from the Black radical tradition of abolition, this paper argues that abolitionist philosophies have great potential to both unearth and address root causes of disproportionate vulnerability, thereby potentially improving disaster response. The paper concludes with examples of abolitionist praxis in New Orleans that have blossomed since Katrina, models with the potential to combat the structural forces responsible for marginalization during disasters in the U.S.