Voices from the margins

BACKGROUND Disaster studies reveals how recovery programmes often narrowly focus on reconstructing houses because affected people are not consulted (Few et al 2021). Therefore, the recovery needs of people are overlooked and programmes can be unsustainable and can exacerbate intracommunity inequality (Oktari et al 2021). CONTRIBUTION The ‘Staying Put after disaster’ photo exhibition reveals the recovery needs and aspirations of people living in Barbuda, who were impacted by Hurricane Irma in 2017. The participant dictated the location and composition of images. Co-production gave primacy to participants’ daily experiences and highlighted the spaces that are important to people’s disaster recovery that may not arise through interviews and surveys (O’Neil and Graham 2016). By taking the photos in “domestic” and “routine” spaces that are significant to people, it encouraged participants to reveal very personal and everyday recovery needs e.g. wanting a new cricket pitch to socialise; a roller skating rink; an old people's home. The exhibition demonstrates how disaster-affected people’s recovery aspiration stretch far beyond rebuilding their house. SIGNIFICANCE The exhibition was chosen from a competitive process to feature at The People's History Museum in 2021. This is one of the most popular museums in Manchester, U.K (over 100,000 visitors per year), and it is one of the most well-respected museums in the UK. It is the UK's national centre for the collection of material relating to working people. My exhibition forms part of the museum's exhibition on migration, which is the museum's "most ambitious" exhibition in its ten-year history.