Kevon Rhiney, the 2023 Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and the Humanities in the High Meadows Environmental Institute, traces post-Irma hurricane disaster relief and rebuilding efforts on the eastern Caribbean island of St Martin to demonstrate how disaster recovery has become a highly contested and political terrain. Rhiney shows how disaster relief efforts have become embroiled in longstanding geopolitical tensions with the Netherlands, and offers insights into island "survivalism" within a context of growing global climate uncertainty and ongoing post/colonial struggles. This is the second talk in the fall 2023 Environmental Humanities and Social Transformation Colloquium.