Anomie or Identity?: Katrina and the Eruption of Violence in New Orleans

1. Anomie or Identity?: Katrina and the Eruption of Violence in New Orleans Angela Broadus, MA Joshua B. Padilla, MA Markus Kemmelmeier, PhD April 19, 2006

2. On August 29, 2005, Katrina plunged the city of New Orleans into disaster. Media reports of social chaos soon followed and many analysts diagnosed a condition of anomie.

3. Durkeim’s Anomie • A social vacuum that occurs when norms break down or are unclear (Clark, 2005) • Linked to deviant behavior, crime, despair, the experience of powerlessness, and suicide (Funk & Wise, 1989; Rodgers, 1995; Stack, 1983; Thorkildson, 1998) http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/crime/anomie.htm

4. Support for Anomie • Over the course of one week, the secure lifestyle to which New Orleans residents were accustomed was shattered. *No fresh water *No food *No power in the city *Virtually no ability to communicate with the outside world • Breakdown in social norms made survival norms salient leading to behavior perceived as chaos, or in social psychological terminology, ANOMIE.

5. But is there a more cogent explanation? • Anomie did impact the initial outbreak of aggression and violence. • However, after the flooding, additional psychological process began to take hold.

6. We Hypothesize: Reicher’s Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM) of crowd behavior provides a better explanation than Anomie for the aggression and hostilities that emerged between the Katrina survivors and rescuers.

7. Reicher’s Elaborated Social Identity Model • Any breakdown of a social order is likely to give rise to a new order in a very short time frame. • Newly empowered definitions of the self emerge from conflictual interactions between groups and the perception of an adversarial relationship with a particular out-group • As one becomes a member of the crowd, social identity is made salient, shifting the content of our identity (“who we are”) while redefining the definitions of legitimate behavior to enable empowerment of the group

8. Two features necessary to feel empowered to take collective action. • #1: The in-group must share similar stereotypes about the out-group. • #2: The in-group must recognize that the situation they find themselves in is a result of power differentials between their in-group and the out-group .

9. Two consequences follow • #1: Crowd behavior follows self-fulfilling prophecy -- living up to what the group believes the out-group perceives of them. • #2: The social relationship between the groups is altered. Now instead of behaving in “normal” ways, people begin to follow new norms they feel are justified due to the perception and actions of the out-group.

10. Methods Procedure: • Content analysis on statements given by survivors in interviews during or directly after the aftermath of Katrina. • Statements were analyzed to see if the pattern predicted by the ESIM emerged …. (a) discussed incidents of violence and aggression (b) demonstrated social identity (c) demonstrated the development of social norms Due to the urgent need for research while the event was still a common topic, the researchers focused on statements that supported the hypothesis.

11. Methodology Sample: • 22 online newspapers throughout the United States and Canada (e.g., WashingtonPost.com; CNN.com; FoxNews.com) • One national magazine (Time) • Content Analysis of Interviews from 22 media sources (a) Radio Interviews (NPR) (b) Television Interview Transcripts (Chris Mathews; Hardball; Nightline, ABC Television) (c) Newspapers articles (New Orleans Times-Picayune) • The National Geographic television special on Hurricane Katrina.

12. Results August 29 Day 1 After the Hurricane Hit Anomie

13. Lower Garden District : Residents partied, looted local stores for alcohol and food, spent time “hanging out…talking about the destruction…up & down St. Charles Street,” or lounged by a swimming pool at Jefferson Davis’ mansion eating grilled shrimp, filet mignon, and drinking wine (Perry, 2005).

14. Looting Began www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au http://cagle.com/news/Hurricanes0805/1.asp

15. Uptown resident described a lifelong familiarity with hurricanes and the belief that Katrina would be no different. “By Monday afternoon, it was pretty much over. We felt for the most part we’d dodged the bullet” (Perry, 2005). http://cagle.com/news/Hurricanes0805/1.asp

16. August 30th The Levees Broke

17. Up to 80% of New Orleans, 6ft (2m) below sea level, was flooded after defensive barriers were overwhelmed. The 9th Ward (home to the poorest citizens was 4 ft below sea level) and Eastern New Orleans were flooded from storm surge on 8/28 before the levees actually broke http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/americas/2005/hurricane_katrina/hurricane_katrina_in_pictures

18. Initially, people thought they would be rescued. • People struggled onto rooftops as floodwater as high as 10 feet poured into the city. • Uncertainty, a sense of invulnerability, relief at having “survived” the hurricane, and a certain degree of anomie. • “People still expected rescue to be imminent and normalcy to return, as it always had before (This American Life, 2005).”

19. Many waited for rescue http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/americas/2005/hurricane_katrina/hurricane_katrina_in_pictures

20. August 31st – Day Three Shift in Norms

21. Survivors vs. Rescuers • Survivors began to act aggressively toward Rescuers. • The words of the survivors resembled the process predicted by the ESIM.

22. First Necessary Feature of ESIM Supported • Crowd Must Share Similar Stereotype Rescue efforts were nonexistent and many began to believe they had been abandoned. “We call ourselves survivors (NPR)”

23. One Center refugee: “…we were left there. Without help. Without food. Without water. Without sanitary conditions, as though it’s perfectly all right for these “animals” to reside in a frickin’ sewer like rats. Because there was nothing but black people back there” (This American Life, 2005). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/americas/2005/hurricane_katrina/hurricane_katrina_in_pictures

24. Second Necessary Feature of ESIM Supported 2. The Situation Must be Seen as a Result of Power Differentials.

25. The police were just scary at this point. There were trucks with a bunch of military in them, with their guns pointed out at us, saying, "Move off the road before I shoot!" We were warned on the radio that they were ordered to shoot to kill if we get into the way. How do you even know if you're in the way?...[After a building blew up]...We didn't know if the military was starting to bomb places...There were a lot of fires starting, a lot of arsonist (Perry, 2005).”

26. “I would rather have been in jail. I've been there seven days and I haven't had a bath. They treated us like animals. Everybody is scared.”J. Jones, Superdome – FoxNews.com

27. First Consequence in the ESIM Supported • Self Fulfilling Prophecy "We are human beings. They are treating us like we're criminals (NPR)"

28. Governor Blanco: “They have M-16's and they're locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will” (Goldblatt et. al., 2005). Survivors are thought of as criminals.

29. Second Consequence in the ESIM Supported • #2: People create new norms to allow for collective action. • Survivors began to develop an adversarial relationship toward rescuers.

30. “Police drew weapons on me because we was carrying food from a church. So then I began taking stuff from stores that were already broken into (NPR)”

31. September 1 – 4 Outright Aggression Between Survivors and Rescuers A shift in identity led to a shift in norms, in reaction to a seemingly hostile rescue effort.

32. “Early this morning, shots were fired at a schnook helicopter. The gunman hasn't been found and they are unsure where the shots came from. The people who are doing the evacuation feel that the situation is getting out of control (NPR).”

33. The city as no longer safe, with "…no crowd control. People were swarming. It was a near riot situation…gunfire between police and civilians that left one man dead in a pool of blood… (Winslow, 2005).

34. “Survivors at the Convention Center were out of resources, out of buses, and believed that the rescuers were going to kill them (Coates & Eggen, 2005).”FEMA did not know that the Convention Center was being used for 25,000 refugees until 11:30pm on 9/1.

35. The Superdome http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/americas/2005/hurricane_katrina/hurricane_katrina_in_pictures

36. “[when driving his boat to rescue people] Someone yelled out to me, 'if you don't get us out by 12 o'clock, we're going to start shooting all the rescuers (NPR).”

37. To one survivor, “It was almost like they were taunting us…they kept lining us up for buses that never showed up. We thought they were playing with us…Or they were going to kill us (This American Life, 2005).”

38. You've got to think of this as a war situation. You've got to act fast...People were saying, If anybody approaches your car, drive over them...there was a lot of fear” (Perry, 2005)

39. New Orleans seemingly descended into anarchy with reports of looting, shootings, carjacking and rapes. Householders took their own counter-measures as a form of martial law was imposed. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/americas/2005/hurricane_katrina/hurricane_katrina_in_pictures

40. Conclusion • The content analysis of survivor statements supported the pattern predicted by the EISM. • The breakdown in social order following Hurricane Katrina gave rise to a new social order by Day 3 of the catastrophe. • Newly empowered definitions of the self emerged from conflictual interactions between rescuers and survivors under the perception of an adversarial relationship. • New social identities became salient (e.g., “survivor” and “rescuer”), and definitions of legitimate behavior were redefined to include hostility toward out-group members.