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This book taps into discussions about social vulnerability, empowerment, and resistance in relation to disaster relief and recovery. It disentangles tensions and dilemmas within post-disaster empowerment, through a rich ethnographic narrative of the work of Occupy Sandy in Rockaway, New York City, after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It details both a remarkable collaborative relief phase, in which marginalized communities were empowered to take active part, as well as a phase of conflict and resistance that came about as relief turned to long-term recovery. This volume particularly aims to understand how community empowerment processes can breach pre-disaster marginalization in the aftermath of disasters. It connects with broader emancipatory literature on dilemmas involved in empowerment ‘from the outside’. In a future of potentially harsher climate related disasters and increased social vulnerability for certain …