Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and most destructive storm to hit the United States. Nearly a year later, the struggles of Gulf Coast residents continue.

New anthropology professor Roberto Barrios, whose work focuses on the social aftermath of natural disasters, spent two months this past summer living in a FEMA trailer in a largely Vietnamese neighborhood on the east side of New Orleans.

His purpose? To record the sociopolitical relations between government agencies and displaced residents, with the aim of helping agencies better respond to disasters.

"I am interested in the policies being devised for recovery efforts and the impact on the people" they're supposed to help, Barrios says. "The premise I'm working on is that when a policy is created, it inevitably has to assume things about people and societies. My research has shown those assumptions are often incorrect, and that causes social crises."

Eric Dangoy, a master's student in anthropology, joined Barrios for two weeks in June, attending protests staged by community residents and interviewing city council members working on the reconstruction process.

Barrios, who stayed in New Orleans until the end of July, will be presenting the pair's findings later this academic year.

"Recovery is slow, disorganized, and filled with frustration for residents," he says. "Families and business owners are going about reconstruction on their own and the local governments are tying their own hands [with] their own bureaucratic policies. The answer is to give neighborhood associations veto power over policies made by larger government agencies."