40 years of recovery in the AJEM
Earlier this year, John Richardson and Blythe McLennan from the Australian Institute of Disaster Resilience asked me if I would like to review 40 years of the Australian Journal of Emergency Management to look at how recovery has been addressed over the last four decades.
"Sure! That sounds like so much fun!” I naïvely enthused.
It was not fun. But nonetheless, it felt like a very worthwhile task.
If you’d like to read the article (expertly tidied from being way over the word limit and originally containing multiple profanities by April Hawksworth at AFAC), click here.
As part of this, I thought I’d highlight 40 of the articles that stood out for me while I was doing the review:
1980’s:
1 - 6. Ruth Wraith and Rob Gordon
[Vol 1/2,1986] Human Responses to Natural Disasters
[Vol 1/3, 1986] The Myths of Human Response in Disaster
[Vol 1/4,1986] General Principles of Human Response to Crisis Situations
[Vol 2/1,1987] Short Term Human Responses to Disaster
[Vol 2/2, 1987] Medium Term Responses to Disaster
[Vol 2/3, 1987] Long Term Responses to Disaster
Read these if: You know you need to start at the start.
7. Sandy McFarlane [Vol 2/1, 1987]
Read this if: You want a hint of how long we’ve known about the toll that this type of work can have on emergency responders and their families over the long term if people are not effectively supported.
8. Julie Jones [Vol 2/2, 1987]
Effects on the Victorian Workers involved in the Ash Wednesday Bushfires
Read this if: You want a sense of the nuance of the effects on people 14 months after a major disaster.
9. Neil Britton [Vol 4/2, 1989]
Sociological Studies in Disaster Part 1
Read this if: You want to eat your recovery sociology history veggies.
10. Roger Jones [Vol 4/4, 1989]
Towards New Directions in Disaster Recovery
Read this if: You want to eat your recovery policy history veggies.
1990’s:
11. Kerry Gartland [Vol 5/1B, 1990]
The State of the Art: Recovery from Disasters and Emergencies
Read this if: You enjoy reading the work of highly competent, badass women who deeply understand the complexity of disaster recovery.
12. John Hill, Helen Hill and Sue Grey [Vol 5/1B, 1990]
Impressions of Visiting Community Recovery Workers
Read this if: You like reading insightful pieces that also serve to thinly veil the frustrations of recovery workers by describing other scenarios with similar issues to the ones they’re managing.
13. Robert Barchard [Vol 6/4, 1991]
Earthquakes: Part of the ‘All Hazards’ Approach
Read this if: You like some of your most insightful reads hidden behind misleading titles.
14. Phil Buckle [Vol 7/3, 1992]
Coordination in Disaster Recovery Management
Read this if: You know coordination in recovery is still an issue, but like reading pieces where people have tried to pin it down.
15. Philip Buckle [Vol 7/3, 1992]
Managing Recovery from Disasters: Issues for the Nineties
Read this if: You have a hunch that we’re still considering similar issues in recovery management 30+ years later.
16. Beth Honeycombe [Vol 8/4, 1993]
Special Needs of Women in Emergency Situations
Read this if: You want to feel a special type of rage, deep in your belly.
17. Jan Williams [Vol 8/4, 1993]
Responding to Women in Emergencies and Disasters: The Role of Community Services Development
Read this if: You want to read the first serious mention in the AJEM of gender-based violence as a risk in disasters.
18. Andrew Coghlan and Philip Buckle [Vol 9/4, 1994]
Floods in North East Victoria, Australia: A Community Based Recovery Management Program
Read this if: You’re curious to know how much recovery program planning has changed.
19. Andrew Coghlan [Vol 13/2, 1998]
Read this if: You want your turn of the century recovery policy history veggies in summary form.
20. Philip Buckle, Jan Brown and Michael Dickinson [Vol 13/2, 1998]
Read this if: You want to see how disaster recovery managers were considering the 80:20 guestimate of who would need clinical support and who would need other types of support in a pre psychological first aid guidelines era.
2000’s - now
21. Anne Eyre [Vol 17/1, 2002]
Read this if: You are evolved enough to acknowledge the harm that government and emergency management agencies can inadvertently cause to disaster affected people who have been bereaved, and you want your organisation to be better.
22. Joeseph T Scanlon [Vol 18/2, 2003]
Read this if: You want to restore your faith in humanity (and just really love the idea of Tim Horton donut boxes being the perfect size to store disaster registration forms).
23. Phillip Buckle, Graham Marsh, Sydney Smale [Vol 18/2, 2003]
Read this if: You also sometimes struggle to define what a community in a post-disaster context.
24. John Handmer [Vol 18/3, 2003]
Read this if: You know you need to read the classics.
25. Rob Gordon [Vol 19/4, 2004]
The Social System as Site of Disaster Impact and Resource for Recovery
Read this if: You know that if you don’t understand how social systems are disrupted by disasters, you don’t know much about disasters.
26. Anne Eyre [Vol 19/4, 2004]
Psychosocial Aspects of Recovery: Practical Implications for Disaster Managers
Read this if: You want your crash course in psychosocial impacts of disasters delivered by an awesome woman who is a professional expert with lived experience of surviving a disaster.
27. Margery Webster [Vol 21/1, 2006]
Notes from the Field: Macedon Ranges February 1983
Read this if: You want your heart broken by the futility of history repeating itself.
28. Anne Eyre and Lucy Easthope (nee Payne) [Vol 21/2, 2006]
Property Rights: Returning Personal Possessions after Disasters
Read this if: There is even the slightest chance that one day you might be overseeing how personal possessions are returned to people after disasters and don’t want to f*ck it up.
29. Susan Nicholls & Chris Healy [Vol 23/3, 2008]
Communication with Disaster Survivors: Towards Best Practice
Read this if: You think excellent comparative case studies written by competent women are glorious.
30. Anne Leadbeater [Vol 28/3, 2013]
Community leadership in disaster recovery: a case study
Read this if: If you want to learn from the Yoda of community-led approaches to recovery.
31. Dan Neely [Vol 29/4, 2014]
Enhancing community resilience: what emergency management can learn from Vanilla Ice
Read this if: You know what ‘Ice, Ice baby’ means.
32. Carol Owen [Vol 33/1, 2018]
How can governments enable and support community-led disaster recovery?
Read this if: You want to hear the nuance of the role that governments can play from someone who has both lived and researched this topic.
33. Deb Parkinson and Claire Zara [Vol. 28/2, 2013]
The hidden disaster: domestic violence in the aftermath of natural disaster
Read this if: You don’t know where to start with understanding gendered violence and disasters, but you know you should.
34. Mark Crosweller (ed) [Vol 29/1, 2014]
Children, Youth and Education Special Edition
Read this if: You’re looking for a crash course on the importance of including children and young people in disaster management and planning.
35. Shona Whitton [Vol 33/1, 2018]
Post disaster temporary memorialising: psychological considerations for disaster managers
Read this if: You might unexpectedly be in charge of managing temporary disaster memorials one day and don’t want to f*ck it up.
36. Nathalie Brown and Louise Scott [Vol 33/1, 2018]
The impact of the Lancefield-Cobaw fire on community recovery
Read this if: You always thought the premise ‘love means never having to say you’re sorry’ is bullsh*t.
37. Louise Mitchell, Margaret Moreton, Mark Stratton [Vol 33/3, 2018]
The review of the National Principles for Disaster Recovery
Read this if: You want to brush up on your history of the National Principles for Disaster Recovery before the new version hits your inbox.
38. Michael Eburn [Vol 36/1, 2021]
The Royal Commission and the Australian Constitution
Read this if: You don’t have an understanding of how the Australian Government can engage the ADF in a disaster but don’t want to sound like a goose in front of your colleagues (also features the most underrated line in the history of the AJEM).
39. Melissa Parsons (ed) [Vol 31/1, 2022]
Gender and Justice Special Edition of the AJEM
Read this if: You want a crash course on why understanding gender and justice in disasters is intertwined.
40. Lucy Kaiser and Bhiamie Williamson (eds) [Vol 40/2, 2025]
Indigenous Special Edition of the AJEM
Read this if: You understand the significance of the first Indigenous led edition of the AJEM.