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Thinking Allowed: Household breakup in New Orleans - Communist memories

01/06/2011

Household breakup in New Orleans - Communist memories

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Household breakup in New Orleans - Communist memories

Family breakdown post Hurricane Katrina. Also, remembering Communism.

Laurie Taylor explores the break up of extended families in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Also, how Central Eastern Europeans remember life under Communist rule.

Hurricane Katrina led to the compulsory evacuation of all the residents of New Orleans. They were sent to shelters in distant destinations ranging from Houston to Tennessee. The scale of the disaster meant that most were unable to stay with or near family. But new research finds that this trauma was compounded by the authorities' failure to recognise the prevalence of extended families amongst the New Orleans poor. The trailers to which they re-located were set up for nuclear families as was the reconstructed housing to which they returned. The American social scientist Michael Rendall discusses post Katrina family breakdown with Laurie Taylor. Also, the process of remembering Communism in Central Eastern Europe. The historian James Mark's new book considers how countries come to terms with the legacies of the past. He joins the Psychology lecturer, Dr Jovan Byford, to question whether people's actual memories of the communist era at odds with officially imposed narratives?

Producer: Jayne Egerton.

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