---
author:
- Aude Chesnais
- Lori Peek
date: 2026-09-07
lang: en
rights: "CC BY-NC-SA 4.0,
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.fr"
source: "https://plurivers.net/revue-plurivers-1/in-the-wake-of-natural-disasters.html"
subtitle: A Conversation with Lori Peek
title: In the Wake of Natural Disasters
---

The following interview was conducted in June 2023 over email by
editorial team member Aude Chesnais.

My name is Lori Peek. I live in Boulder, Colorado in the United States.
I am director of the Natural Hazards Center and professor in the
Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder. I have
spent more than two decades of my life researching the human impacts of
disaster. My PhD dissertation and first published book focused on the
backlash against Muslim Americans after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. My
subsequent collaborative books have explored a range of topics related
to children and disaster, population displacement following Hurricane
Katrina, how we learn lessons from large-scale disasters, and the
contours of environmental sociology. Something that has always drawn me
to the hazards and disaster field is its unapologetically applied
nature. My mentors instilled in me a feeling that research should be
designed to be practical and actionable, and I've carried those insights
with me throughout my career and into the classroom. At the University
of Colorado Boulder, I teach a large 400-student Introduction to
Sociology course. I also mentor many undergraduate and graduate students
who want to learn how to conduct research and apply the knowledge gained
to reduce existing vulnerability. I love the work that I do, and it is
always useful to have an opportunity to step back and reflect.

\_Aude Chesnais (AC): Lori Peek, your work generally questions how
marginalized communities cope with natural hazards and disasters. Your
contribution means a lot to us. Can you tell us a little more about
yourself and how your work relates to climate change?

\_Lori Peek (LP): Thank you for asking about these connections. For more
than 20 years, I've been studying how people who are socially
marginalized---due to income, age, race and ethnicity, or other
factors---prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. When I
first started working at the Natural Hazards Center as a graduate
research assistant in 1999, disasters were often characterized as "low
probability, high-consequence events." In the years since, climate
change has contributed to an acceleration of disaster impacts and
losses. Now, I think it may be more accurate to characterize disasters
as "high probability, high-consequence events." The rising number of
disasters has taken a disproportionate toll on low-income populations,
people of color, children, older adults, and others with limited power
and resources. Because climate-change-related disasters are already
displacing and harming so many people at the margins of society, I see a
strong connection between sociological work on socially vulnerable
populations and climate change research.

\_AC: What can you tell us about the prevalence of natural hazards that
turn into disasters? What do these trends suggest we can expect in the
near future?

\_LP: While reporting standards and practices have certainly been
refined over the decades, most scholars agree that *the number* of
climate-change-related disasters is increasing. Consider for example one
recent report that found that 90 percent of U.S. counties suffered at
least one major weather disaster between 2011 and 2021.[^1] The same
report also showed that some counties experienced multiple,
co-occurring, or cascading events. Analyses of large-scale disasters in
the U.S. also indicate that *the time interval* between disasters is
shortening, meaning that there is less time and resources available to
respond, recover, and prepare for events, leaving communities in
seemingly endless cycles of loss and disruption.[^2]

These and many other data sources suggest that across the U.S. and
globally, communities are increasingly confronted with the effects of
extreme heat and cold, floods, drought, and myriad other crises linked
to human activities that have raised carbon dioxide content in the
atmosphere. Of course, it is important to underscore that disaster
losses are not *only* stemming from climate change. They also occur
because of unsustainable land use practices, unenforced or non-existent
building codes, rising economic inequality that leaves fewer people with
resources to mitigate and prepare, structural racism that has resulted
in people of color often living in riskier places or more unsafe housing
stock, and so forth. The point is that disasters occur at the interface
of built, human, and natural environments. To only focus on one force
driving these disaster losses would obscure the other intersecting
factors.

\_AC: How will this affect marginalized and racialized communities in
the U.S.? Which population do you think is the most at risk?

\_LP: I appreciate this question very much, but might revise it slightly
to say: How *are* these disasters affecting marginalized and racialized
communities in the U.S.? It feels important to talk about climate
change-related disasters in the present, rather than future, tense.
These disasters are here, they are being felt by billions of people
around the world and hundreds of millions here in the U.S. People of
color, low-income populations, and other groups that have limited power
and resources are especially affected by climate extremes.

In terms of which population is most at risk, this is also complicated
and in some ways impossible to answer. At the broadest scale, we are all
living at risk and few if any are completely safe from impending
disaster. With that in mind, disasters obviously cause disproportionate
effects, but to understand those effects, it is vital to use an
intersectional lens that explores closely interwoven threads of
inequality and privilege. For example, those who use intersectional
theory and methods in their work tend to carefully explore multiple
*demographic factors*---such as race, class, gender, age, ability, and
so forth---as well as *contextual factors* such as geographic location
and (lack of) investment in infrastructure and community capacity. In
the U.S., people of color and people with limited income or no wealth
are more likely to live in communities with less healthcare access, less
resilient infrastructure, and other contextual conditions that render
those populations more vulnerable to disaster. As these examples
suggest, there is nothing inherent about vulnerability. It is instead
shaped and driven by historical, economic, and social forces. Taking
these factors into account helps us identify which communities are most
at risk, and why. Once we have that information, the question becomes
how to change policy and practice to reduce risk.

\_AC: What are ways that racialized and marginalized communities cope
with and prepare for disasters?

\_LP: We have learned, and still have much to learn, from racialized and
other marginalized communities in terms of the resources and capacities
that they bring to disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. There
is no one single answer to this question, as there is much variability
across communities of color. But researchers and practitioners in the
hazards and disaster field have issued powerful calls to center
considerations of justice in communities at risk of and affected by
disaster.[^3] For example, we have a real opportunity to learn more from
Indigenous communities regarding land use management practices that
could help to mitigate escalating wildfire threats.[^4] After Hurricane
Maria in 2017, Puerto Rican communities came together to establish
resilience hubs to ensure that the most vulnerable residents had access
to water, food, shelter, power, and medical supplies.[^5] After
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which led to disproportionate deaths and
displacement among the Black community, members of our feminist research
collective gathered many moving stories of Black families working
together to care for children and to ensure their basic needs were
met.[^6] The list goes on. It is vital we listen, learn, fund, and
advance these efforts where possible, while altering the systems that
render economically and socially marginalized communities
disproportionately at risk in the first place.

\_AC: What does it mean to you to "decolonize climate change"?

\_LP: This is a great question. At a most basic level, it evokes the
image of working together to fix something that is fundamentally broken
with our systems and structures. I often draw on definitions that refer
to working toward rooting out systemic injustices ("the fix") while
simultaneously honoring Indigenous and other cultural systems that may
offer alternative frameworks for addressing human-driven climate change.
This journal is obviously going to play an enormous role in advancing
the answer to that question.

\_AC: How do you think your positionality influences your perspective?

\_LP: Positionality is a topic I take very seriously. Drawing on the
work of other social scientists and practitioners, our team at the
Natural Hazards Center developed a CONVERGE Training Module on the topic
of positionality,[^7] and we have a book chapter on positionality[^8] in
press as well. We define positionality as a concept that encompasses
one's multiple intersecting identities and how social roles, power, and
privilege influence one's perspectives and experiences in research.

Personally, I have a positionality journal that I keep and refer to in
the context of the field settings where I work. This helps me to remain
reflexive and accountable regarding how my own identities may affect the
work I do and relationships I try to cultivate. I am a White, straight
woman from a rural community in Kansas. I grew up on a farm with two
parents and three brothers, went to school for many years, and
eventually earned a PhD. Now I'm a full professor at a university. I'm
married to a man, we have a young child, and we own our own home. All
these factors, and so many others, define who I am, and because I often
work across lines of difference---studying people from other geographic
regions or of different cultures, races, ages, and so on---it is
important for me to critically reflect on my own identities and how they
shape my power and privilege in the field.

Further, I spend a great deal of time talking to people in the field
settings where I work to identify how we can ensure that the research
makes a difference, that data and findings are returned to community
members in usable formats, and that participants are supported in
appropriate ways. For example, over the years, I've hired young people
as research assistants[^9] so they may not only share their stories but
also learn about the research process, while gaining valuable
credentials and economic support for their own future development. I've
also led multiple efforts focused on the timely and ethical sharing of
disaster data and instruments to ensure that community members have
access to key information.[^10] In the work that I do, I try to remember
to recognize that all people---including myself---are privileged and
disadvantaged in specific and dynamic ways. I try to honor that
complexity as I learn from others. I also strive to remember, always,
that privilege is not something to be ashamed of, but rather brings with
it great responsibility to use advantages to advance more just and
equitable social structures.

\_AC: Climate change is increasingly causing anxiogenic reactions,
especially in young people and those who feel it is a lost cause. What
message would you like to share with them?

\_LP: First, I would want to listen to them. My colleagues and I have
learned an enormous amount from children whose lives have been upended
by disasters[^11]---both about the long-term damaging effects, and about
how children have agency and can make a difference to lessen the harm
from these events. Listening to young people is key, as is honoring
their fears, hopes, dreams, concerns, and ideas. If there was one
message I would share, it is that I am anxious too. I'm scared for what
our future holds and what it will mean for current and future
generations. I'm also completely overwhelmed when I think about all the
biodiversity that is being lost and what that will mean for children's
sense of wonder and their relationship to the natural world.

I also know that there is a possibility for something different if those
of us---the global majority who care deeply about climate change and
those who are already being so badly affected---work together to move
toward a more just and equitable future. This problem is much too big
for any one person or group to solve. That is exactly why we need each
other now more than ever before. We also need strong governance
structures, the best science, and people to exercise their moral
imaginations as we try to envision new ways of living on this rapidly
warming planet.

\_AC: Thank you so much for your precious time and contribution.

\_LP: Thank you. I am so honored to have been invited to share my
thoughts and to be included in this inaugural issue. I have a heart full
of gratitude for each of you and the work that you are doing.

[^1]: Amy Chester and Johanna Lawton, *Atlas of Disaster,* a report by
    Rebuild by Design (Fall 2022),
    https://rebuildbydesign.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ATLAS-OF-DISASTER-compressed.pdf.

[^2]: See Adam B. Smith, "U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate
    disasters in historical context," *Climate.gov*, January 10, 2023,
    https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/2022-us-billion-dollar-weather-and-climate-disasters-historical.

[^3]: Alessandra Jerolleman, *Disaster Recovery Through the Lens of
    Justice* (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

[^4]: T. Schinko, C. Berchtold, J. Handmer, et al., "A framework for
    considering justice aspects in integrated wildfire risk management,"
    *Nature Climate Change* 13 (2023): 788--95.

[^5]: See Mercy Corps, "'Resilience Hubs' in Puerto Rico are vital in
    the wake of Hurricane Fiona," October 10, 2022,
    [[https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/resilience-hubs-puerto-rico-vital]{.underline}](https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/resilience-hubs-puerto-rico-vital).

[^6]: Lynn Weber and Lori Peek, *Displaced: Life after Katrina* (Austin:
    University of Texas Press, 2012).

[^7]: See the training module available online from University of
    Colorado Boulder:
    https://converge.colorado.edu/resources/training-modules/.

[^8]: For a list of my up-to-date List of Publications, visit:
    [[https://hazards.colorado.edu/resources/lori-peek-publications]{.underline}](https://hazards.colorado.edu/resources/lori-peek-publications).

[^9]: See the research process in detail in Katherine Browne and Lori
    Peek, "Beyond the IRB: An Ethical Toolkit for Long-Term Disaster
    Research," *International Journal of Mass Emergencies & Disasters*,
    32, issue 1 (2014).

[^10]: See for example the 2023 workshop convened with the National
    Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Program Office
    on Open Data, Workshop on Open Data and Reuse in Social Science
    Weather Research,
    https://hazards.colorado.edu/research/weather-ready-research/open-data-workshop.

[^11]: See Alice Fothergill and Lori Peek, *Children of Katrina*
    (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015).