Introduction
- In conflict zones it can be dangerous for people to travel and maintain their normal activities.
- Global technologies such as the mobile phone and Internet applications, people can coordinate and communicate to help restore activities through negotiating travel, increasing situational awareness, and conducting online social interaction.
- Disasters have generally been viewed as non-routine events causing social disruption and physical harm with the following key properties:
- Length of forewarning
- Magnitude of impact
- Scope of impact
- Duration of impact
Technologies to aid resilient behavior
- During disruptive events, where the environment is unstable and activities are greatly unpredictable, civilians in the impacted area may be forced to change the way in which they live.
- When people face the unexpected on a daily basis, expectations for routine life may change.
- On the one hand, when people live through extreme situations they may no longer be able to travel to and from work or university. On the other hand, people may find ways to be resilient to maintain these routines.
- Resilience: how people ‘bounce back’ and persevere despite the situation.
- People have improvised by altering their work locations or developing ad hoc facilities to maintain organizational function when workplaces were damaged or inaccessible
- People improvise by modifying their work hours in order to accommodate growing needs.
- Resilience has been observed according to people’s ability to improvise by assuming various organizational roles, or developing new roles.
Research setting
- Conflict : Israel–Lebanon war, North of Israel for 34 days.
- Citizens in the conflict zone continued to have uninterrupted access to landline telephone systems, cellular and broadband Internet networks, electricity, and clean water.
- But it is difficult for citizens of the country to maintain their routines.
- First, bombs, i.e. Katyusha rockets, were exploding randomly, thus making it difficult to travel within the country. Our informants were unable to easily travel to work, or to visit friends and family, or even the grocery store.
- Second, sirens notifying citizens of impending danger were also altering the way in which people were accustomed to managing their daily lives. When people heard a siren, they would often halt what they were doing and flee to the nearest bomb shelter.
Technological resources supporting resilience
Our investigation revealed that civilians living in these war zones were highly innovative in their ability to maintain various aspects of their lives. We provide illustrations which show how technology can support resilient behavior, by enabling people to maintain practices for work, social life, education, travel, and obtaining relevant situational information.
- TECHNOLOGY AND WORK COLLABORATIONS
- MAINTAINING A SOCIAL LIFE AMID ‘SOCIAL DESTRUCTION’
- CONTINUING EDUCATION WITH THE AID OF TECHNOLOGY
- RESTORING INFRASTRUCTURE FOR TRAVEL
- CROSS-CHECKING INFORMATION