Crip Networks in Climate Crisis: How Disabled Angelenos Survive the LA Wildfires

• In Event: Disability in Society Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1. At the Nexus: The Sociology of Disability and Other Sociologies

Abstract

Current sociological research rarely discusses disabled people’s livelihoods amidst climate change and natural disasters, obscuring disabled experiences with those of able bodied people. This project highlights disabled people's different modes of survival during the Los Angeles wildfires, as the majority of fatal victims were disabled. I plan on conducting in-depth interviews, digital ethnography, and participant observation to investigate how these Angelenos utilized their formal and informal networks to survive, as evacuation orders and emergency responses often do not consider disability. The climate change scholarship that addresses disability frames it as a consequence of climate change, rather than centering disabled people and their experiences with climate change. I seek to innovate sociological understanding of climate crises and survivorship through the application of disability theory. Furthermore, my project adopts an intersectional approach as Los Angeles’ segregated nature resulted in varied emergency responses within ethnic communities. How can public policy and first responders address this gap and work to ensure the safety of vulnerable populations if social scientists continue to neglect disabled people as well? My project addresses this gap through community engaged ethnography with disabled Angelenos, activists, and community centers to further understand disabled survival under immediate crisis. Pushing the concept of survival forward, I question what disabled survival looks like during natural disasters. When does the smoke clear? At what point is “survival” reached when medical equipment and homes with accessible structures, things these Angelenos need to survive their daily lives, have been turned to ash?

Author

• Elan Tulberg, University of Texas at Austin