“We Were All in the Same Boat”: An Exploratory Study of Communal Coping in Disaster Recovery

Abstract

Disaster recovery is a stressful, uncertain, and traumatic experience for communities. In order to alleviate links between disaster recovery and negative outcomes, collectives may engage in communal coping, an understudied process. We interviewed 37 citizens of a town devastated by Hurricane Ike. Results revealed three communal coping activities: mutuality, a reciprocal pattern of emoting and shared problem recognition; co-construction of a community narrative, or participants relaying the story of the town’s unity and bootstrap mentality; and problem-centered communal coping, which centered on material assistance and information sharing. We propose connections between communal coping, identification, and (community) identity in drawing distinctions between communal coping and social support. The study concludes with practical implications for communities engaged in disaster recovery.