The Invention of Disaster: Power and Knowledge in Discourses on Hazard and Vulnerability (Routledge Studies in Hazards, Disaster Risk and Climate Change)

Disasters primarily hit places which, at different scales, are marginalised in everyday life, such as prisons, slums and peripheral cities. In addition, those affected are often from marginalised segments of society, such as the poor, children, elderly, people with disabilities. Many disasters are unacknowledged by those with more wealth and power, leading to many events to be neglected and marginalised by policy makers and practitioners of disaster risk reduction. This book offers an integrated overview of these issues and provides a conceptual framing of the multiple, tangled and complex interactions between marginality and disaster. It explores marginal places through case studies of slum settlements and prisons, and marginalised social groups, including gender minorities and homeless people. It also discusses why and how some events are neglected and marginalised by stakeholders of disaster risk reduction. The book offers an integrated and inclusive framework for taking back marginal places, marginal people and marginal events at the core of disaster risk reduction, and further provides examples of tools which could enable the implementation of such framework. This book thus focuses on places, people and events which are seldom addressed in the literature elsewhere, such as small-scale disasters, thus providing a unique overview of disasters and their effects. It analyses the root, structural and largely exogenous (to places and people affected) causes of marginality and disasters. The argument however moves beyond this sole bleak picture of vulnerability to also portrait resistance and hope through the concept of capacities, which emphasises that those marginalised and living in marginal places display knowledge, skills and resources in facing hazards and disasters, including small-scale events. This book argues that the domination of Western knowledge in disaster scholarship has allowed for normative policies and practices of disaster risk reduction to be imposed all over the world. It takes a postcolonial approach to deconstruct concepts, methods, and forms of governments inherited from the Enlightenment. Cover 1 Endorsement Page 2 Half Title 4 Series Page 5 Title Page 6 Copyright Page 7 Table of Contents 8 List of illustrations 9 Foreword 11 Preface 14 Chapter 1: What is a disaster? 20 Power and knowledge 21 Understanding disaster and the Enlightenment legacy 24 Disaster risk reduction and the project of modernity 26 The hegemony of Western discourses 28 On representation and asymmetric ignorance 32 Towards a postcolonial disaster studies agenda 36 Our book and its approach 39 Notes 43 Chapter 2: A genealogy of disaster studies 46 On the origins of modern disaster studies 46 A myriad of cognate concepts 48 Dominant understanding and the hazard paradigm 51 Alternative interpretation and the vulnerability paradigm 53 From vulnerability and suffering to capacities and resilience 55 Dialectical tradition and the Western legacy 57 Conclusion 58 Notes 60 Chapter 3: Unfulfilled promise of a paradigm shift 62 A brief epistemology of a paradigm shift 63 Have we risen to the challenge? 64 On the disaster ‘gold rush’ 66 Perpetuating the Western hegemony in disaster studies 69 The instruments of the hegemony of Western scholarship 73 On conduct in a growing field of scholarship 76 Notes 78 Chapter 4: The quest for pantometry 80 What kind of evidence for what kind of measurement? 82 Economic reductionism and the hazard paradigm 82 Anthropological particularism and the vulnerability paradigm 83 Participatory pluralism and the capacities spin-off approach 84 Measuring resilience in practice: a brief review of methods and tools 84 Economic reductionism: indexes and other quantitative measurements of resilience 85 Anthropological particularism: qualitative measurement of resilience 87 Towards participatory pluralism: toolkits and characteristics of resilience 88 Inherent strengths and limits of the method(s) and the search for compromise 89 On Western heritage and the quest for pantometry 92 Can resilience be understood? 95 Notes 96 Chapter 5: The governmentality of disaster 97 Governmentality as the modern art of government 98 Asserting sovereignty through disaster risk reduction 101 Discipline and regulation in disaster risk reduction 106 The dispositif of disaster risk reduction 110 Global arrangements and the hegemony of international agreements 110 The governmental infrastructure and mechanisms 112 The other dimensions of the dispositif of disaster risk reduction 115 On the durability of the governmentality of disaster 117 Power and knowledge in disaster risk reduction 121 Notes 123 Chapter 6: Climate change and the ultimate challenge of modernity 125 Climate change and the resurgence of the hazard paradigm 126 On the governmentality of climate change 129 The future is now in Kiribati 132 Climate change and Western imperialism 136 Climate change and the demise of the project of modernity? 140 Notes 141 Chapter 7: Exclusive inclusion and the imperative of participation 142 On the ethos and principles of inclusion in disaster risk reduction 143 From theory to the practice of exclusive... inclusion 146 On categories, intersectionality and power relations 150 Myths and realities: of communities and local knowledge 155 On the myth of community 155 On romance and local/indigenous/traditional knowledge 159 Process, means and the dilemma of accountability 161 Is inclusion culturally ethical? 164 Notes 166 Chapter 8: Gender in disaster beyond men and women 168 Gender beyond men and women 171 Bakla and disasters in the Philippines 175 Waria and disasters in Indonesia 177 Fa’afafine and disasters in Samoa 180 Gender minorities in disaster and disaster risk reduction 181 Beyond men and women in disaster 184 Fostering the inclusion of gender in disaster risk reduction 187 Notes 189 Chapter 9: Power and resistance in disaster risk reduction 190 Prisons and power à l'état nu 191 Prisons in disasters 194 Prisons in the Philippines 195 Responses of people in prison to disasters in the Philippines 198 Layer 1: The individual level 198 Layer 2: The karancho/kasalo level 199 Layer 3: The cell level 199 Layer 4: The brigada and pangkalahatan levels 200 The outside networks 201 Culture, ‘inmate society’ and disasters 202 On resistance, disaster and disaster risk reduction 206 Beyond Western governmentality and disaster risk reduction 209 Notes 210 Chapter 10: The invention of disaster 212 The invention of disaster 213 From concept to object: the legitimisation of the invention 215 On pluralism and the petits récits of disaster 219 Re/constructing disaster and postcolonial disaster studies 221 A call for dialogue and alliance 224 Utopia or foreseeable future? 227 Notes 229 Chapter 11: Postscript: Where to from here? 232 Note 232 References 233 Index 263 JC,Gaillard;,Disaster,and,Marginality;,Marginal,Events;,Neglected,Disasters;,Marginal,Natural,Hazards;,Prisons,and,Disaster;,Slums,and,Disaster;,Homeless,People,in,Disaster;,Gender,Minorities,in,Disaster;,Gender,and,Disaster;,DRR,Framework;,Natural,Hazards;,Disaster,communities;,Disasters;,Hazards;,Disaster,Risk,Reduction JC Gaillard,Disaster and Marginality,Marginal Events,Neglected Disasters,Marginal Natural Hazards,Prisons and Disaster,Slums and Disaster,Homeless People in Disaster,Gender Minorities in Disaster,Gender and Disaster,DRR Framework,Natural Hazards,Disaster communities,Disasters,Hazards,Disaster Risk Reduction This theoretical contribution argues that the domination of Western knowledge in disaster scholarship has allowed normative policies and practices of disaster risk reduction to be imposed all over the world. It takes a postcolonial approach to unpack why scholars claim that disasters are social constructs while offering little but theories, concepts and methods supposed to be universal in understanding the unique and diverse experiences of millions of people across very different cultures. It further challenges forms of governments inherited from the Enlightenment that have been rolled out as standard and ultimate solutions to reduce the risk of disaster. Ultimately, the book encourages the emergence of a more diverse set of world views/senses and ways of knowing for both studying disasters and informing policy and practice of disaster risk reduction. Such pluralism is essential to better reflect local realities of what disasters actually are around the world. This book is an essential read for scholars and postgraduate students interested in disaster studies as well as policy-makers and practitioners of disaster risk reduction. This theoretical contribution argues that the domination of Western knowledge in disaster scholarship has allowed for normative policies and practices of disaster risk reduction to be imposed all over the world. It takes a postcolonial approach to unpack why scholars claim that disasters are social constructs while offering little but theories, concepts and methods supposed to be universal in understanding the unique and diverse experiences of millions of people across very different cultures. It further challenges forms of governments inherited from the Enlightenment that have been rolled out as standard and ultimate solutions to reduce the risk of disaster. The book ultimately encourages the emergence of more diverse worldviews and ways of knowing for both studying disasters and informing policy and practice of disaster risk reduction. Such pluralism is essential to better reflect local realities of what disasters actually are around the world. This book is an essential read for scholars and postgraduate students interested in disaster studies as well as policy makers and practitioners of disaster risk reduction