Digging deeper: participation and non-participation in post-disaster community recovery

Stakeholder participation is widely acknowledged as being critical to post-disaster recovery, but little is known about the dynamics and decision processes that lead to this participation or to non-participation. More in-depth knowledge of these dynamics can lead to more targeted and timely intervention by development practitioners managing the process. This paper presents key conclusions of a study which analyzed stakeholder participation using qualitative data inquiry methods in the recovery of three coastal villages of Nagapattinam (India) after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The first key conclusion is that participation and non-participation are a complex function of stakeholder presence and stakeholder impact. Secondly, stakeholder power, legitimacy, trust, and urgency for action affect the forms and continuation of participation and non-participation. And lastly, time constraints and rapidly changing recovery conditions change stakeholder legitimacy, power, trust, and urgency over time, thus reaffirming some imbalances while also creating new opportunities to redress others.