Disaster Recovery in Practice: Field-Bas

This is a condensed, field-based travel course on disaster risk reduction, response, and long-term recovery, taught in Türkiye during Spring Break. Students work in teams with faculty and students from a partner university in Türkiye to produce a case study grounded in the recovery from the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes, which caused catastrophic losses across the Hatay region.

The course runs in three parts. Before departure, one to two sessions and a working workshop establish the hazard and governance context, set each team's research question, and cover field methods, research ethics, and travel logistics. The travel week takes students from lectures and a comparative virtual workshop in Istanbul, to briefings, organizational meetings, and site visits in Hatay, and back to Istanbul for a public presentation with Turkish partners. A post-travel session closes the course with revised presentations and the final written case study.

Students see the systems in practice that are responsible for managing housing, debris, displacement, livelihoods, cultural heritage, and local government capacity as one connected problem rather than as separate sectors. They also have the opportunity to interact with those who are doing the work: national agencies, municipalities, humanitarian organizations, local civil society, and residents themselves.