Modeling a smart city resilient to earthquakes with a women's social security approach

Abstract

Earthquake crisis management in developing metropolises always faces the complex challenge of ensuring the security of vulnerable groups. Evidence shows that women face double physical and psychological insecurities in the golden hours after an earthquake due to the collapse of official surveillance, total darkness, and unconsidered population mixing. The present study aims to fill this gap by designing and explaining the model of “Smart City Resilient to Earthquakes with a Women’s Social Security Approach”. This research is developmental-applied in terms of its purpose and qualitative in terms of its method with the strategy of data-based theory and the systematic approach of Strauss and Corbin. The participants included 18 experts in the fields of crisis management, information technology, and sociology who were selected through purposive sampling. The data obtained from in-depth semi-structured interviews were analyzed through three stages of open, axial, and selective coding. The research findings in the form of a paradigmatic model showed that the “specific security crisis” and “information darkness” as causal conditions have made the necessity of forming a central phenomenon, namely “smart security-oriented governance”, inevitable. The extracted strategies include “development of smart surveillance infrastructures”, “data-driven management and algorithmic risk prediction”, and “digital empowerment of women”. These strategies are implemented in the context of “cultural and physical considerations” and taking into account structural and sanction challenges. Finally, the results indicate that the implementation of this model will lead to outcomes such as “improving women’s existential and psychological security”, “realizing distributive justice in relief services”, and “increasing social resilience”.