Alice Fothergill
Abstract
In this research project I investigated women's experiences in a natural disaster. I conducted a four.year, qualitative, longitudinal study in Grand Forks, North Dakota, a community that experienced a flood of historical proportions in the spring of 1997. My research is based on sixty in-depth interviews, observation, and document analysis. Using a grounded theory approach, and drawing heavily from the theoretical traditions of symbolic interactionism and feminist thought, I present an indepth loot at women's everyday lives in extraordinary times. I examined the gendered division of labor, the way in which women navigated the boundaries of public and private spheres, and the role that social class, race, gender, and physical disability played in their experiences. I found several important components to women's experiences: "role accumulation" due to the increased demands of their community, family, and work roles; the stigma of needing and receiving assistance; the importance of class and status for their economic recovery; threats to their health and well-being; strains on their relationships with family and religion; increased risk to domestic violence and a decrease in available services; and women's efforts to preserve and recreate domestic culture and familial rituals. Ultimately, the women experienced both role and identity shifts and continuance, as they performed traditional and nontraditional roles, their ideologies – about women and the poor – shifted, and their sense of self expanded.
Ph.D. in Sociology
University of Colorado Boulder
2001
Committee Members
Dennis Mileti (Chair)
Patricia A. Adler
Janet L. Jacobs
Joyce Nielsen
Martha Gimenez
Alice Fothergill is professor of sociology at the University of Vermont. She is the author of Heads Above Water: Gender, Class, and Family in the Grand Forks Flood, co-editor of Social Vulnerability to Disasters (first and second editions), and co-author, with Lori Peek, of Children of Katrina.