HGP and DCDC Workshop 2016: Helping and Resilience in the Face of Disaster

The Human Generosity Project

 January 15-16, 2016

The Human Generosity Project team partnered with the Decision Center for a Desert City to host a multidisciplinary workshop in Tempe, Arizona. The workshop served as a platform for discussion on the topic of helping behavior and the enhancement of resilience in the face of environmental uncertainty. Psychologists, anthropologists, engineers, mathematicians, and disaster recovery experts all shared their insights and latest findings in an environment of rich dialog stimulated by a great diversity of perspectives and methodologies.

In October of 2014, Lee Cronk and Athena Aktipis (co-Directors of the HGP) visited the Malpai borderlands region of southern Arizona and New Mexico to explore its suitability for the HGP. They were received warmly by local ranchers and other members of the community and learned a great deal in a short time about both the risks and uncertainties faced by American ranchers and the ways in which they support each other through tough times. Cronk and Aktipis concluded that the Malpai region would provide both some interesting parallels with our East African pastoralist sites and some additional features not found at any of our other sites. These include the risks associated with the work itself – managing cattle in a rugged environment, largely on horseback – and with the ranches’ dependence upon the market economy. After their visit, Cronk and Aktipis decided to make the Malpai borderlands region an official fieldsite of the HGP.