Heritage Organizations and Post-Hurricane Public Engagement: Knowledge Management and Lessons Learned from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

People, governments and societies have repeatedly throughout history had to respond to the effect of hurricanes on their communities and environments. Although places like the Caribbean have a long history of being impacted by natural disasters; hurricanes are seldom studied in the context of heritage management and community adaptation strategies in regards to disasters and resilience. This paper uses Hurricane Maria’s impact in Puerto Rico as a case study to explore the role of heritage professionals during the post-disaster recovery phase by exploring their actions for re-engaging with local communities. It further evaluates lessons learned from both parties that can be used to develop community-based disaster risk management strategies. The study shows the importance of heritage professionals in utilising post-hurricane public engagement efforts to re-establish a sense of normalcy. Ultimately, it highlights the significance of identifying community leaders and building partnerships to effectively carry out participatory approaches to disaster risk management and increasing resilience of communities and cultural resources to hurricanes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32401