Disasters最新文献

This paper uses uncertainty generated by environmental change and climate crisis as a prompt to rethink the concept of vulnerability within disaster studies. Where some have sought to recover a latent political potential in vulnerability, a togetherness founded in the disclosure of insecurities to others, we argue that there is value in refusing to settle on any single meaning. This is explored directly through an analysis of narrative interviews with persons bearing different vulnerabilities in four European countries. Tracking forms and expressions of vulnerability across research sites, we identify an unease and fragility in knowledge of disaster risk, before assessing how people nevertheless make sense of their experience and act collectively to find ways through uncertainty. The paper also considers vulnerability reflexively in the context of epistemic practices, suggesting that modesty and openness to more localised ways of knowing might contribute to the adaptability and responsiveness of disaster studies. We conceptualise these diverse dispositions to uncertainty as vulnerable knowledge.

This article illustrates the impact of neoliberal economic policies on forced migration from Arab Spring countries. It highlights how these policies, based on the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, significantly contributed to the outbreak of civil wars and subsequent refugee crises. The central argument of this analysis is that the economic reform programmes were a primary driver of the forced migration wave after 2010. Using Syria as a case study, the paper shows how the implementation of these programmes led to the erosion of the social contract that had previously ensured stability in Syria. This erosion was characterised by the marginalisation of rural areas and populations, the reduction of subsidies, and the economic and political marginalisation of the country's youth. The article calls on international financial institutions to take into consideration the nature of political regimes and the dynamics of authoritarianism to prevent turmoil, civil wars, and forced migration in the future.

This paper explores how vulnerability is not only defined by the state but also actively reshaped through policy implementation and lived experience. Drawing on ethnographic research in Eskişehir, Turkey, I propose an analytical distinction between the ‘commodification of vulnerability’—framing risk in technoscientific and moral terms to justify intervention—and the ‘reproduction of vulnerability’—capturing the emergent precarity produced by such action. Following the 2011 Van earthquakes, Turkey's central government advanced disaster prevention as a national imperative. In 2012, Law No. 6306 was enacted to facilitate large-scale urban transformations in the name of risk prevention. Eskişehir's Metropolitan Municipality quickly adopted the ‘Renewal Law’, initiating the Risk Zone Urban Renewal Project with the stated aim of protecting lives and property. While official definitions of vulnerability centred on the structural durability of the built environment, residents of the designated area have encountered new and unanticipated vulnerabilities, ranging from housing insecurity and prolonged legal limbo to socioeconomic instability and emotional distress.

‘Gazacide’, following the events of 7 October 2023, has deepened trauma and exacerbated the severe dispossession and exploitation faced by Palestinians. Positive religious coping, particularly within the Islamic faith, and social support are crucial for alleviating the impacts of traumatic experiences and fostering psychological adjustment. Thirty participants, 17 females and 13 males, were recruited via snowball sampling to examine the role of these factors in Gaza. Interviews were scrutinised using thematic analysis, leading to the identification of six main themes: (i) the role of religion in providing psychological resilience; (ii) religious leaders as pillars of support; (iii) the role of social support networks in strengthening community resilience; (iv) the strain of overcrowding and displacement on social cohesion; (v) challenges of supporting vulnerable populations through religion and community; and (vi) rebuilding trust and hope amid displacement and genocide. Religious leaders and social support institutions play a vital part in promoting positive coping strategies, aiding individuals in understanding these experiences.

Given limited legal and political oversight owing to the nature of humanitarian operations, the management of digital data by humanitarian organisations is largely governed through ethical self-regulation. In this paper I assess the perils and promises of such self-governance via an analysis of the IASC Operational Guidance on Data Responsibility in Humanitarian Action. By drawing on empirical literatures on the problems and practices that this guidance seeks to address, I argue that adopting its principles and procedures is no guarantee of ethical conduct. The reason is that interpretation of the principles is not agreed upon, and their practical implementation is constrained by conflicting commitments and the lacking capacity of organisations. On this basis, I consider the risk of ‘ethics washing’ resulting from failure to uphold ethical standards without acknowledging it. This leads to a discussion of whether ethical self-regulation should be replaced with more legal regulation and political control to avoid this danger.

Researchers have argued that preventing disasters is more efficient than providing relief. Yet, previous scholarship has found that voters in the United States reward politicians more for relief than for prevention policies. It is unclear, however, whether they truly favour relief policies or if they are simply more aware of them. In this article we report on an experiment in which American participants read about a fictional community facing a threat of flood and then rated their support for a disaster policy. Across conditions, we manipulated whether the policy is for relief or prevention, and whether the citizens are cooperative or uncooperative with respect to government policies. We found that participants did not support relief more than prevention; in fact, they favoured prevention when citizens were uncooperative. In addition, participants were less supportive of relief for uncooperative as compared to cooperative citizens, while cooperativeness did not affect support for the prevention policy.

Reform of the international humanitarian system has stagnated, and commitment to localise power and resources has not eventuated. This research, specifically on the Ukraine humanitarian response, draws on anthropology's exploration of aidnographies, focusing on the oft-overlooked role of aid workers; however, it offers an explicitly place-based, grounded approach to Ukrainian crisis leaders' and responders' lived realities, decentring international ‘aidlanders’. We deploy the concept of ‘homeland’ as an explicit counterpoint to ‘aidland’ to portray the dilemmas, tensions, and contradictions of the international system from below. The study employs an actor-oriented qualitative approach to examine the experiences of Ukrainian humanitarians. Semi-structured interviews with 32 such individuals provide situated, contextual, time-bound, and frequently deeply personal stories. Our respondents demonstrate the potential for international guests to adopt a ‘homeland’ sensibility, foregrounding a need to locate policy, procedures, actions, and decision-making within an equitable, fair, and place-based setting, responsive rather than controlling, and embedded in relevant contextual priorities, knowledge, and practices.

This study explores the importance of integrating disaster and climate resilience into Zimbabwe's rural communities, resulting ultimately in a model that reflects both their priorities and needs. The Integrated Community Disaster and Climate Resilience Model (ICDCRM) was developed by engaging with community members, traditional leaders, and disaster risk reduction and climate change practitioners using the constructivist grounded theory approach. A total of 33 participants shared views in focus-group discussions and semi-structured interviews—concurrent data collection and analysis were performed with the aid of Atlas.ti (2018) software. This study affirms that disaster and climate resilience strategies can be integrated into at-risk communities to enhance their responses to climate change and disasters. These phenomena pose interlinked risks; hence, strategies to prepare for and respond to them should be coherent and synergistic. The ICDCRM reveals that integrated disaster and climate resilience can create sustainable pathways to effective coordination of strategies and efficient management of risks.

Debates about ‘the trouble with aid’ are nothing new. But while these have usually focused on technical, financial or political concerns, the central challenge to the aid industry today is social. If the modern enterprise of aid was a systemic response to ‘the social question’ (the fallout of capitalist property relations in a class society), it is now faced with ‘the post-social question’ (the fallout of the social fragmentation brought about by the persistence of these property relations). As the withdrawal of aid from dependent recipients intensifies their hardship, a different politics of human life, grounded in radical needs, is now the necessary basis for a substantive contestation of the social transformations casting today's catastrophic horizon.

Despite significant rhetoric around reform, the humanitarian sector predominantly focuses on maintaining established structures with minimal actual change. The calls for reform are categorised into technocratic and participatory approaches. Technocratic reforms aim at increasing operational efficiency, whereas participatory efforts prioritise empowering local communities. However, both approaches fail to address the broader political and economic contexts and often overlook the needs and voices of local actors. Meaningful reform should focus on principled, context-specific international and local collaboration, which prioritises both lifesaving support, principled advocacy, and defence of international humanitarian law.