Disasters最新文献

This paper studies how the relations between nature and society are constructed in disaster governance frameworks. Dominant disaster governance frameworks present nature and society as separate realms, and the organisation of society is increasingly seen as the key cause of hazards and disasters. Disaster impacts are similarly framed around adverse societal consequences, while other-than-human nature is merely the background across which disasters unfold, as property lost, or a means of disaster governance. Although the centrality of human impacts is troubled when biodiversity or a disaster flagship species is threatened, neither situation challenges the nature–society dualism embedded in dominant disaster governance frameworks. The attention and resources of disaster governance target the societal side of nature–society dualism. This study finds, though, that in peripheries characterised by remoteness from centres of power, a sparse human population, and large spaces of other-than-human nature, the vulnerabilities facing humans and other-than-human nature risk being ungoverned.

The 3.11 disaster in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, is a useful case study through which to interrogate research ethics. This region has been the site of a high degree of research interest, which sometimes presented a source of stress to local communities. This study examines researcher perspectives on the ethics of post-disaster health research. Qualitative interviews were conducted with these informants, who noted that recovering communities experienced significant over-research, particularly in the form of survey fatigue, which was seen to influence viewpoints concerning both recovery and agency. Efforts to integrate better into community needs reoriented reflexive research towards ‘post-normal’ forms of working. Simultaneously, researchers had to navigate funding and reward structures that prioritised the swift production of results. Focusing on community engagement and feedback, and managing this ethical complexity, were seen as essential forms of ethical practice to mitigate the negative impacts that the influx of research activity can have on a recovering community.

Inami, a small seaside town in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, is getting ready for the next Nankai Trough earthquake, which is expected to involve multiple events of magnitude 7.0+ on the maximum seismic intensity scale, causing landslides and tsunamis. This paper is concerned with the capabilities and challenges of an elderly community in this highly prepared rural town. The results show that the continued mainstreaming of disaster preparedness practices has led to widespread awareness of evacuation sites and basic knowledge of disaster evacuation needs. Arguably, however, insufficient support is provided to the elderly as current procedures often do not consider how their reduced mobility, physical strength, and psychological discomfort might impact on evacuation itself and life at the shelters. This paper contributes to the literature on disaster and vulnerability by critically assessing and expanding on perceptions of ageing and disasters in rural areas vis-à-vis the traditional depiction of the elderly as ‘vulnerable and helpless’.

Violent clashes erupted on the Greek island of Lesvos in early 2020, during which aid groups, volunteers, and activists were threatened and attacked. Aid actors and media sources attributed these events to far-right, nationalist, and xenophobic mobilisation; however, this risks ignoring more structural factors and local perspectives on asylum policies and practices. This paper suggests that a more critical approach is necessary to understand why people mobilised against aid on Lesvos, and it explores how this antagonism can be seen as intrinsic to the ‘humanitarian border’ as it materialised on the island. Aid groups, volunteers, and activists became integral to this, spawning stories of how they were sustaining the migration dynamic. How these stories coincided with far-right mobilisation is not straightforward, and nuancing how local concern and protest and far-right anti-immigration sympathies relate is imperative to comprehending hostility to aid groups and may contribute to fostering better relations with communities in refugee-hosting areas.

Previous research suggests that sex traffickers may take advantage of vulnerable populations in the aftermath of disasters caused by natural hazards. Despite the amplification of vulnerabilities in the wake of such events and the increased likelihood of sex traffickers exploiting them, there is limited empirical evidence to show such a connection. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to answer the following research question: what is the relationship between hurricanes and online advertisements potentially linked to sex trafficking? Hurricane Laura (a Category 4 hurricane that occurred between 20 and 29 August 2020) serves as a case study and data are scraped from Escort Index, an aggregator of popular multi-service adult entertainment platforms in the United States. The results show a significant negative relationship between Hurricane Laura and the number of online sex advertisements potentially linked to human trafficking. The study offers three alternative explanations for this finding and concludes by outlining additional areas of research on this important topic.

Typically, advancing localised approaches to peacebuilding has evaded critical reflection on the power dynamics and harms that can arise. This paper considers the gender dynamics and gendered harms that can manifest themselves when adopting an uncritical approach to localisation in peacebuilding. To do so, it examines the use of mato oput (drinking the bitter root) in post-conflict northern Uganda, as an example of a localised approach to post-conflict transitional justice, to investigate these dynamics and harms. It draws from interviews and focus-group discussions that were conducted in northern Uganda between 2020 and 2022 and engages with critical international relations scholarship on the ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding and the gendered nature of conflict and peace. The paper argues that in patriarchal societies, advancing localisation may entail a return to the traditional or customary order that reaffirms and reifies oppressive gender power relations and helps to consolidate gender inequalities, including unequal access to both security and justice.

Unexpected and often severe weather has taxed community capacities. Convincing households to prepare by developing emergency plans, keeping necessary supplies, and investing in home upgrades, to name a few, has been a focus of many public campaigns related to extreme weather. Essentially, these programmes are exercises in persuasion. What, then, characterises such a campaign that is likely to be successful in this act of persuasion? Recent work has found that household preparedness may be related to trust in government, as a key emergency information provider, although the evidence is mixed. In this article, we argue that the mixed evidence scholars have found may come from the measurement of trust in government. Our statistical analysis shows that increases in minimum trust in levels of government decreases household preparedness for tornadoes. The finding highlights the importance of augmenting and restoring social trust (in addition to trust in government) to produce better emergency management outcomes in the United States.

How do we understand a disaster? How do we interpret the aftermath of a disaster, anyway? This article draws on my ethnographic fieldwork to understand what constitutes a disaster and how preexisting social conditions shaped events in the wake of Cyclone Aila in South Asia in May 2009. The people who received relief following this disaster engaged in discrimination, something that has become palpable through the frame of disaster. At the same instant, multiple forms of power at different levels materialised; aware of the dynamics of the crisis, actors have strategically used the disaster to strengthen their positions in the name of ‘building back better’. I show how these phenomena are linked with the consequences of disaster. The paper explains how people's attitudes towards the state and vice versa shape patterns of land use and forms of resource extraction, thereby intensifying resource-related hazards in the hinterlands of the Indian Sundarbans.

Over the past 30 years, the relationship between the neighbouring states of Armenia and Türkiye has been greatly influenced by a politicised atmosphere and ongoing debates about their shared history, alongside efforts at reconciliation. It is noteworthy that, in a global context increasingly characterised by both anthropogenic and natural calamities, the phenomenon of (shared) disasters as it pertains to the dynamics of Armenia–Türkiye relations has garnered relatively scant scholarly attention. This study investigates instances of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic on a global scale and the Kahramanmaraş (Türkiye) earthquakes that occurred on 6 February 2023, which serve as disasters possessing diplomatic and symbolic significance that could facilitate a transition from a state of conflict to one of cooperative peace between these two nations. Utilising a disaster diplomacy framework and incorporating data obtained from Armenia and Türkiye, this paper posits that disasters may function as a substantial catalyst in fostering diplomatic conditions and advancing efforts towards rapprochement.

The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic pinpointed the vulnerability of nations to disasters regardless of their relative level of development. The coordination of their emergency management response organisations was seen as extremely important in not only dealing with the global health emergency, but also with respect to natural hazards and public health threats in the future. Coming to these conclusions and working to enhance a country's coordination of emergency management actors are, however, two very different things. Using El Salvador in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, this research observes the various coordination issues indicative of emergency management organisations and practices in a resource-scarce environment in order to develop recommendations for enhancing coordination during forthcoming events. Through an analysis of public documents and 15 executive-level key informant interviews with government and emergency management officials, coordination challenges are identified and a number of suggestions for policy are provided.