Editors: DeMond S. Miller (Rowan University-New Jersey-USA) and Jason D. Rivera (Rowan University-New Jersey-USA).

Community Disaster Recovery and Resiliency: Exploring Global Opportunities and Challenges, an edited volume, provides a much-needed forum for policymakers, students, scholars, community organizations and citizens to discuss communities collectively experiencing trauma during the pre- and post (immediate and long term) disaster response and recovery periods as it is experienced around the globe. This volume engages practitioners, academics, researchers, policy makers and grassroots organizations in search of sustainable ways to rebuild communities after disasters (both natural and man-made). The editors of this volume are calling for diverse community examples as a framework to facilitate a candid in-depth comparison of the best practices illustrating how communities experience, recover, and affect social policies in such a way that the community’s vulnerability to disaster is reduced. This manuscript seeks to identify, explain and understand, from a social scientific perspective, the opportunities and challenges communities confronted on the road to recovery. Ultimately, we envision the impact of the work to provide overall better understanding of professional disaster management and safety for all citizens.

Chapter proposals in reference to opportunities and challenges to international community recovery are being accepted in the following areas:

Building and Public Infrastructure

Social and Cultural Revitalization (including formal and informal social support networks)

Economic Revitalization

Public Health and Safety

Housing and Housing Policy

Private-Public Partnerships for Building Sustainable Communities

We seek chapters that attempt to address concerns similar to these listed below:

What are the current opportunities and challenges that enable or constrain communities in their struggle to access government/NGOs assistance?

What historic and contemporary opportunities and challenges exist in relation to social, demographic, political and public policy trends that impact the practice of civic-government interactions towards those most vulnerable and in need of help?

What “best practices” emerge after disasters that encourage the sustainable development of communities as they return to normalcy, result in lastly social change and enhance the lives of people at the local level?

The editors will consider a mixed methods approach among the chapters. We fully expect some of the chapters to be qualitative as well as quantitative (surveys, census data, focus groups, case studies, cross-cultural comparisons, etc…).

Send a title, an abstract and 3 – 5 page double-spaced chapter proposal, in English, by June 1, 2008 to: DeMond Miller at millerd@rowan.edu.