Episode 15: Natural Disasters and Food Security with Dr. Lauren Clay

Amy Barnes38min

Dr. Ian Anson

00:04

Hello and welcome to Retrieving the Social Sciences, a production of the Center for Social Science Scholarship. I'm your host, Ian Anson, Associate Professor of Political Science here at UMBC. On today's show, as always, we'll be hearing from UMBC faculty, students, visiting speakers, and community partners about the social science research they've been performing in recent times. Qualitative, quantitative, applied, empirical, normative. On Retrieving the Social Sciences, we bring the best of UMBC social science community to you.

Dr. Ian Anson

00:41

I like to think of myself as something of an optimist. Maybe it's the fact that I work at a great university with inquisitive students and supportive colleagues. You know, maybe it's the fact that after a long day of social science research, I know that I can unwind by spending some time playing with my cat. Maybe it's just my nature, whatever that means. You know, regardless of its origin, thinkers and social scientists from Voltaire to Martin Seligman, have questioned the determinants of optimistic thinking. And it turns out social scientists have discovered a strikingly obvious pattern in human psychology. We mostly like to think about things that feel good. And we usually don't like to think about things that make us feel bad. Go figure, right? Despite our pension for optimism, on today's episode, we're going from the bright side over to some darker territory. Specifically, today we're considering what we know about the social science of natural disaster response. While the tendency for optimism I just described means that we often don't like to think about the potential devastation caused by hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes. Some intrepid social scientists devote their entire careers to understanding what happens when nature turns against us. These scholars think deeply about negative events, and explore ways to improve outcomes even in the midst of chaos and destruction. Dr. Lauren Clay is one of those scholars. An associate professor and the department chair of the UMBC Department of Emergency Health Services, Dr. Clay's research focuses on the social science of disaster response. Her work has investigated a variety of disasters, including fires, oil spills, hurricanes, and the COVID-19 pandemic, and focuses on improving outcomes through more effective emergency response. While most of us are content to spend our days dreaming of sunny skies and calm waters, Dr. Clay investigates how to protect us from the after effects of those darker days. I'm really excited to bring you our conversation, which was recorded earlier this spring. Let's listen in.

Dr. Ian Anson

02:52

Dr. Lauren Clay, we're so grateful to have you with us. And we're really excited to talk to you about today's topic. Topic of disasters and food and food security.

Dr. Lauren Clay

03:04

Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Ian Anson

03:06

So my first question is really, I think, motivated by the fact that as a political scientist, I don't always think about the topic of disasters front and center as a as a thing to study. And maybe that's just because I tend to be something of an optimist. I tend to be like most people, I don't want to think about things that are very dire. And, and and sort of depressing in many respects. So I want to know what got you interested in this subject of disasters in the first place?

Dr. Lauren Clay

03:34

Yes, so I am from South Louisiana, where disasters are just a part of life, right? We get hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding. And then as I got older, I've moved around a bit. And I've also lived in other places that had hazards. So I've lived in Vietnam and Bangladesh, both which have tropical cyclones, which are hurricanes. So just that sort of personal experience. They were in my life, for the most part. And then it's interesting. So as I, so I moved to the north, I was living in New York and Philadelphia, it became really interesting seeing how people who didn't have these hazards as part of their everyday life didn't quite understand. There was a disconnect. They didn't, uhm, they had a very different perspective, so I got really interested in, in what's happening. In fact, it was, I think, Hurricane Gustav in 2008. I had gone home to visit my family. I was living in Philadelphia at the time. So you know, I visit them a few times a year every year, between I'd say three and five times. And so just as usual, would go and then Hurricane Gustav turns out was coming right towards our area. So we ended up evacuating, and I sent an email to my supervisor saying, you know, I was evacuating taking my grandmother, we were, you know, getting out of the way of the hurricane. And I would be back in touch when I could, you know, you never really know. It was a couple of days, I got back, you know, my area was fine. And I flew home. When I got home, my supervisor was like, well, I don't understand why you didn't just come home or why you went in the first place. And I'm like, well, hurricane season lasts a long time, and it's every year. And like, there might often be a hurricane developing, and maybe it's coming your way, but they usually turn. And so am I just not going to see my family half the year? No, so she just didn't understand. And that was like a moment that really stood out for me.

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