Pet owners, Hurricane Harvey, and sense-making: conceptualizing “crisis core identities”

ABSTRACT

Pets are considered family to many people, which may be a reason why pet owners face identity-specific challenges during disasters. As such, this research queries how pet owner identity may impact communicative exigencies during a disaster and how this identity may impact individuals’ disaster sense-making. The 2017 Hurricane Harvey serves as the context for this research. Data were gathered using a three-stage, multi-method design that sampled from Harvey-affected pet owners. Findings suggest that pet owner identity did impact participants’ communicative exigencies as well as their sense-making processes related to their Hurricane Harvey experience as a pet owner. Based on participant insights, the concept of “crisis core identities” (CCIs) is proposed to make sense of nuances that emerged from data. Brenda Dervin’s sense-making methodology and Michael Hecht’s communication theory of identity situate the study and serve as foundations for advancing CCIs. Implications are further discussed as related to extant research, praxis, and future research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).