ABSTRACT
Drawing on both the history of emergency management and firsthand ethnographic observation, this chapter introduces emergency management collaboration as a rich site for the understanding of cumulative authority. Emergency management emerges from conflicting legacies, including US defense contractors, wildland firefighting, and community preparedness during the Cold War. Post 9/11, however, emergency management experienced a paradigm shift as this budding profession was consolidated and then supervised by the newly created Department of Homeland Security, which took a keen interest in local security and hazard responses in order to protect this “homeland.” Emergency management collaboration sits at the intersection of paramilitary hierarchy and local cooperation, creating potential conflicts and opportunities related to the development of authority.
