Ripples from an earthquake: Legacies of a disaster volunteer response

Abstract

The Student Volunteer Army was formed following the earthquake sequence of 2010–2011 in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, and has since been widely celebrated as a youth-led volunteer disaster response. More than ten years after the mobilisation, we trace the legacies of this action through in-depth interviews. Our findings demonstrate that informal disaster volunteerism can generate numerous legacies that span the biographical, social and institutional arenas. Utilising the analogy of ripples in a lake, we identify how these ripples from the student-led mobilisation extended well beyond the temporal and spatial confines of the disaster context in which they originated, and gained their own momentum in ways that were at times consciously encouraged by actors but also unintended. In identifying these legacies, our analysis helps better understand the potential impact of informal disaster volunteerism beyond the material contribution made in the immediate disaster response period. Our discussion considers the theoretical and practical implications of situating informal disaster volunteerism in a temporal context that extends prior to and well after disaster.