Rebel Food ... Renegade Supplies : Convergence After The World Trade Center Attack
Date
2001
Authors
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Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
The World Trade Center attack, though constituting an unprecedented disaster,
nevertheless generated many of the features seen in other disasters in the U.S. Such
features include the convergence of volunteers and donations of supplies, which are well documented
in the literature. Their appearance typically is problematic, since they both
introduce needed resources and present additional management challenges for public
officials already occupied with their emergency duties. This paper builds on existing
theories of disaster-related collective behavior by examining convergence following the
World Trade Center attack. It focuses on the proliferation of volunteers and donated
supplies, and identifies a form of convergence not discussed by other researchers: that of
supporters or fans. Relying on data gathered in over 750 collective hours of field
observations and on documentary sources, the paper argues that the multifaceted aspect
of the event-disaster, battlefield, and crime scene-and ambiguity about the extent of
any continuing threat complicated the often (but not inevitably) problematic aspects of convergence in the response milieu.
Description
Keywords
World Trade Center, volunteers, Collective Behavior, September 11, supplies