Archives: Research Blog

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Gone to the Dogs: Disasters and the Pet Perspective

Pet-owning families will know the important role that animal companions play in the household. From dinner table companions anxiously awaiting fallen scraps, to bedside (or pillowside, depending on your willpower) sleeping partners, pets are an integral part of the family. It is no surprise, then, that during times of disaster, accommodations for... More

Saturday, November 16, 2024

A Hurricane is Not Just a Hurricane

The impact of Hurricane Hazel can be approached from a spatial historical perspective. Spatial history focuses on the relationship between humans and place over time. These relationships can be many things; physical, cultural, and economic, and the focus on this relationship gives space the capacity to act on the people that interact with it.... More

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Thoughts, Prayers, and Typhoons: Catholicism in the Midst of a Disaster

“To God Be the Glory.” It says at the end credits of a Filipino telenovela playing on tv at a family friend’s living room. Growing up as a Filipino-Canadian, who was used to more “secular” Canadian media content, I have always thought this was such a bizarre statement to have at the end of... More

Monday, May 6, 2024

What is a Disaster?

  At a recent Disaster Lab meeting, the question of “what is a disaster?” came up. We realized that despite researching how other people were thinking about, addressing, and/or experiencing disasters our project team had yet to define the term for our own purposes. As we set about doing so, we recognized that (as... More

Saturday, September 2, 2023

Summer (and Wildfire Season) Are Not Yet Over

As September ushers in feelings of a new school year, the once casual "how was your summer?" exchange has taken on a sombre tone. Informally speaking, nearly every conversation I've had this past week with friends from across the country has come with a tone of hesitation. "I didn't really feel like I had... More

Thursday, June 8, 2023

The “Canadian” Wildfires of 2023

On June 5, 2023, as over 200 wildfires raged across the country, the federal government through a whole-of-cabinet approach issued a lengthy official update informing Canadians that "current June projections indicate the potential for continued higher-than-normal fire activity across most of the country throughout the 2023 wildland fire season."... More

Thursday, January 26, 2023

On Classroom Experiences

One of the really great things about being awarded funding by the Early Researcher Award program is that youth outreach is built into the granting parameters. Public outreach can’t be an afterthought or something that is tagged on, it has to be part of the work of the project.   For the Disaster Lab,... More

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

The Displacements

Recently, a colleague recommended the new novel by Bruce Holsinger, The Displacements, as material that might be of interest to the Disaster Lab project. Always on the lookout for inspiration, it was fascinating to sit with this novel about an upper class American family that is displaced from their home in Miami when the... More

Saturday, October 22, 2022

Media Coverage of Disasters at Home and Abroad

One of the aspects of the Disaster Lab research that has been most compelling has been the diversity around the term “disaster” itself. The Oxford English Dictionary describes a disaster as “An event or occurrence of a ruinous or very distressing nature; a calamity; esp. a sudden accident or natural catastrophe that causes great... More

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

On Defining Disasters

The Canadian Red Cross (CRC) is widely known for its response to large-scale natural disasters: whether it’s the Fort McMurray wildfires or tornadoes in Ottawa, Red Cross volunteers are comforting and familiar responders. In 2020, however, the CRC only responded to 2 large-scale disasters. In contrast, the institution assisted over 2800... More

Friday, January 28, 2022

“Summary of Disasters”: Introducing Disaster Lab Research on the Canadian Red Cross

What is a disaster? The answer, I always thought, was subjective. A disaster was, well, you know, a disaster. No additional thought required. However, when Laura Madokoro approached me about working on The Disaster Lab, I had never considered the multiple meanings of the term. My primary research involves discourse analysis and an examination of... More

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

Disaster Lab Update

I am writing this post on a morning when up to 50 centimetres of snow are forecast to fall over the city of Ottawa. I am also writing on a morning when the world continues to confront the deadly global Covid-19 pandemic, and where we are processing the news of a deadly tsunami in Tonga as... More

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