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Humanitarian crises - resulting from conflict, natural disaster or political collapse - are usually perceived as a complete break from normality, spurring special emergency policies and interventions. In reality, there are many continuities and discontinuities between crisis and normality. What does this mean for our understanding of politics, aid, and local institutions during crises? This book examines this question from a sociological perspective. This book provides a qualitative inquiry into the social and political dynamics of local institutional response, international policy and aid

PurposeThe transcript takes you on a journey of the book mapping vulnerability and the developments thereafter.Design/methodology/approachThe transcript and video was developed in the context of a United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) project on the History of DRR.FindingsThis interview highlights how DRR is central to conflict settings as well.Originality/valueThe interview provides reflections on DRR in conflict settings.

The relations between disaster experts, governments, and local people have often been considered problematic in disaster situations. The idea that disasters caused by natural hazards are the ultimate terrain of experts and managers has been discredited by approaches focusing on the capacities and coping practices of local people, while the role of governments in the interplay between experts and local people is often left unclear. This paper reviews some recent insights into the complexity of these relations by introducing the notion of social domains of disaster responses. Social domains are areas of social life where ideas and practices concerning risk and disaster are exchanged, shared and more or less organized because of a certain proximity, physically or discursively, in the ways references are made to disaster and risk. The study of social domains allows one to focus on the everyday practices and movements of actors negotiating the conditions and effects of vulnerability and disaster. The paper first discusses how experts and local people are represented in different subsequent paradigms of disaster studies; elaborates on the importance of social domains for studying disaster response; after which the three domains of disaster science, governance and local people will be discussed.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of illustrations -- List of contributors -- Chapter 1: Introduction: Why vulnerability still matters -- Why vulnerability still matters -- Changing views on vulnerability and disaster risk creation -- Vulnerability, conflict, and state-society relations -- Doing vulnerability and resilience -- Notes -- References -- Part 1: Why vulnerability still matters -- Chapter 2: Remaking the world in our own image: Vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation as historical discourses -- Vulnerability as a Cold War discourse -- The battle over resilience and the rise of neoliberalism -- Globalisation and the 'turn' to Adaptation -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 3: Between precarity and the security state: A post-vulnerability view -- Vulnerability retrospective -- A preventive view -- Worlds of work -- Precarity -- Armed violence -- Civil defence -- Reconstruction after disaster -- Concluding remarks -- References -- Chapter 4: Creating disaster risk and constructing gendered vulnerability -- Introduction -- Assuming women's vulnerability -- Including women by assumption -- Feminising policy -- Being good, naturally -- Protecting the protectors -- Concluding thoughts: on the natural and the normal -- References -- Chapter 5: What must be done to rescue the concept of vulnerability? -- Where does vulnerability come from? -- Improving the validity and use of vulnerability analysis -- What do we mean when we say a disaster has happened? -- Public health and social causation of disease as a parallel analysis -- Who uses 'vulnerability' and why? In what ways is it useful? -- What makes the term vulnerability valid and useful? -- Components of vulnerability -- Livelihood needs, risk perceptions, and the significance of culture -- Notes -- References.

AbstractIn high-conflict scenarios, humanitarian needs often surpass resources, and humanitarians are faced with ongoing challenges of whom to prioritise and where to work. This process is often referred to as 'targeting', but this article uses the concept of 'triage' to emphasise how prioritisation is a continuous and political process, rather than a one-off exercise to find the best match between needs and programme objectives. This study focused on South Sudan, exploring the formal and informal dynamics at the national, regional and local levels of humanitarian decisions. The article is based on semi-structured interviews and multiple meetings and observations of programmes over four months of fieldwork in 2017. This fieldwork was beset by many of the problems that humanitarians also encounter in their work, including complicated access, logistics difficulties and security challenges. Humanitarian action is meant to be flexibly deployed to respond to priority needs resulting from conflict or disasters, and agencies have multiple tools and policies to facilitate this. However, in reality, we find humanitarian action largely locked into path-dependent areas of intervention because agencies must rely on logistics, trust and local partners, all of which take years to develop, and because local actors' commitment to see programmes continued.

PurposeDebates on the ethics of disaster and humanitarian studies concern unequal relations in research (among research institutes/researchers/stakeholders); the physical and psychological well-being of research participants and researchers; and the imposition of western methods, frameworks and epistemologies to the study of disasters. This paper focuses on everyday ethics: how they need to be translated throughout the everyday practices of research and how researchers can deal with the ethical dilemmas that inevitably occur.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyses the process of addressing ethics-related dilemmas from the first author's experiences researching disaster governance in high-intensity conflict settings, in particular drawing from 4 to 6 months of fieldwork in South Sudan and Afghanistan. In addition, ethical issues around remote research are discussed, drawing on the example of research conducted in Yemen. It is based on the personal notes taken by the first author and on the experience of both authors translating guidelines for research in remote and hazardous areas into research practices.FindingsThe paper concerns translating ethics into the everyday practices of research planning, implementation and communication. It argues for the importance of adaptive research processes with space for continuous reflection in order to advance disaster studies based on (1) equitable collaboration; (2) participatory methodologies wherever possible; (3) safety and security for all involved; (4) ethical approaches of remote research and (5) responsible and inclusive research communication and research-uptake. Openness about gaps and limitations of ethical standards, discussions with peers about dilemmas and reporting on these in research outcomes should be embedded in everyday ethics.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to discussions on everyday ethics, where ethics are integral to the epistemologies and everyday practices of research.

The Covid‐19 pandemic has magnified existing crises and vulnerabilities, but much remains unknown about how it has affected fragile and conflict‐affected settings. This paper builds on the theory that hazards become a disaster in interaction with vulnerability and response policies, yet often lead to renewed disaster risk creation. It is based on seven case studies of countries worldwide that experienced social conflict at the advent of the pandemic, covering the period from March–August 2020. The findings show that authorities instrumentalised Covid‐19 to strengthen their control and agendas. Responsibility was assumed for lockdowns, but this was not accompanied by care to mitigate their adverse effects. Social conflict shaped the response, as high levels of mistrust in authorities complicated the implementation of measures, while authorities did not support community‐based coping initiatives. Whether Covid‐19 will trigger or exacerbate conflict and vulnerabilities depends on pre‐existing, country‐specific conditions, and how a government and other actors frame the issue and respond.

The Covid-19 pandemic has magnified existing crises and vulnerabilities, but much remains unknown about how it has affected fragile and conflict-affected settings. This paper builds on the theory that hazards become a disaster in interaction with vulnerability and response policies, yet often lead to renewed disaster risk creation. It is based on seven case studies of countries worldwide that experienced social conflict at the advent of the pandemic, covering the period from March–August 2020. The findings show that authorities instrumentalised Covid-19 to strengthen their control and agendas. Responsibility was assumed for lockdowns, but this was not accompanied by care to mitigate their adverse effects. Social conflict shaped the response, as high levels of mistrust in authorities complicated the implementation of measures, while authorities did not support community-based coping initiatives. Whether Covid-19 will trigger or exacerbate conflict and vulnerabilities depends on pre-existing, country-specific conditions, and how a government and other actors frame the issue and respond.

Disaster governance in conflict areas is of growing academic concern, but most existing research comprises either single case studies or studies of a variety of country contexts that group all types of conflict together. Based on three case studies, this article offers a middle-ground scenario-based approach, focusing on disaster governance in authoritarian contexts experiencing low-intensity conflict. Low-intensity conflict is characterized by intense political tensions and violence that is more readily expressed in ways other than direct physical harm. Inspired by Olson's (2000) maxim that disasters are intrinsically political, this article explores the politics of disaster response by asking what is at stake and what happened, unpacking these questions for state, civil society, and international humanitarian actors. Using data from a total of one year of qualitative fieldwork, the article analyzes disaster governance in 2016 drought-ridden Ethiopia, marked by protests and a State of Emergency; 2015 flooded Myanmar, characterized by explosive identity politics; and 2016–2019 drought-ridden Zimbabwe, with its intense socioeconomic and political turbulence. The study's findings show how framing and power processes in disaster governance—comprising state and non-state actors—largely lean toward the state, with the consequence that political interests, rather than needs assessments, steer who and what will be protected from disaster impact.

PurposeWhen a major landslide and floods devastated Freetown, Sierra Leone had just overcome the Ebola crisis, which had left its mark on socio-political relations between different disaster response actors. With international disaster response frameworks increasingly shifting to local ownership, the national government was expected to assume a coordinating role. However, in "post-conflict" settings such as Sierra Leone, intra-state and state–society relations are continuously being renegotiated. This study aimed to uncover the complexities of state-led disaster response in hybrid governance setting at national and community levels in the response to the 2017 landslide and floods.Design/methodology/approachDuring the four months of fieldwork in Freetown in 2017, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with various state, aid and societal actors were conducted.FindingsThe findings show that a response to policy building on the idea of a uniform state response did not take into account intra-state power politics or the complexity of Sierra Leone's hybrid governance.Practical implicationsThis paper argues for a more nuanced debate in humanitarian governance and practice on the localisation of aid in post-conflict and fragile settings.Originality/valueThe study's findings contribute to the literature on the disaster–conflict nexus, identifying paradoxes of localised disaster response in an environment with strong national–local tensions. The study highlights intra-local state dynamics that are usually overlooked but have a great impact on the legitimacy of different state authorities in disaster response.

Disaster governance in conflict areas is of growing academic concern, but most existing research comprises either single case studies or studies of a variety of country contexts that group all types of conflict together. Based on three case studies, this article offers a middle-ground scenario-based approach, focusing on disaster governance in authoritarian contexts experiencing low-intensity conflict. Low-intensity conflict is characterized by intense political tensions and violence that is more readily expressed in ways other than direct physical harm. Inspired by Olson's (2000) maxim that disasters are intrinsically political, this article explores the politics of disaster response by asking what is at stake and what happened, unpacking these questions for state, civil society, and international humanitarian actors. Using data from a total of one year of qualitative fieldwork, the article analyzes disaster governance in 2016 drought-ridden Ethiopia, marked by protests and a State of Emergency; 2015 flooded Myanmar, characterized by explosive identity politics; and 2016–2019 drought-ridden Zimbabwe, with its intense socioeconomic and political turbulence. The study's findings show how framing and power processes in disaster governance—comprising state and non-state actors—largely lean toward the state, with the consequence that political interests, rather than needs assessments, steer who and what will be protected from disaster impact.