Research in Turbulent Environments: Slums in Chennai, India and the Impact of the December 2004 Tsunami on an Ecohealth Project Martin J. Bunch, 1,2 Beth Franklin, 1 David Morley, 1 T. Vasantha Kumaran, 3 and V. Madha Suresh 3 1 Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada 2 Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health, http://www.nesh.ca 3 Department of Geography, University of Madras, Chennai, India Abstract: On December 26, 2004, a tsunami struck coastal areas in the Bay of Bengal. Among the communities affected were Pallavan Nagar and Anju Kudasai slums in Chennai India. These communities have been collaborating, with some success, on a project to manage the urban environment for human health that employs an adaptive ecosystem approach framework, and is heavily influenced by participatory action research methodology. The tsunami resulted in loss of life, shelter, property and livelihoods in these communities. This profile presents an overview of the project, the two settlements, and the impact of the tsunami on the communities. This article also discusses the impact of the disaster on the direction and nature of the ecohealth project. Key words: ecosystem approach, participatory action research, slum, tsunami, turbulent environment, envi- ronment and health INTRODUCTION December 31, 2004: Two women pick their way among a tangle of thatch and personal belongings lying on a beach in Chennai, India. Until the morning of December 26, 2004, the site of this debris was home to over 300 households, residents of a fisherman’s slum. The two women stop along the way to take photographs and to talk to the remaining residents of the community. They build a picture of the events on the morning of the 26th and of the impact of the tsunami on the community. They try to assess how they can assist these people, with whom they have developed a friendly working relationship over the past 8 months of action research activity. After about 2 hours, they climb back to the coastal road, flag down an autorickshaw, and make their way back through the noisy and chaotic traffic of Chennai to the University of Madras. There is work to be done, reports to be made to their respective supervisors, and plans to be generated about responding to the disaster. The two women are Annamma Devi, a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Madras, and Susan Mintz, a project intern from Canada. Both are associated with a research project, ‘‘An Adaptive Ecosystem Approach to Managing Urban Environments for Human Health,’’ that frames the work of an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Canada and India. The project has the Published online: j. Correspondence to: Martin J. Bunch, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York Uni- versity, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada, e-mail: bunchmj@ yorku.ca EcoHealth 2, 1–5, 2005 DOI: 10.1007/s10393-005-3866-8 Profile Ó 2005 EcoHealth Journal Consortium