Disaster Risk and Disaster Capitalism

Uncertainties associated with disaster risk management present development opportunities to elite actors – for example, landed elites and local government – but these elites shape development policies and practices to advance their interests. Landed elites draw on the ‘new towns’ model to lobby not only as a justification for local economic growth but also to help reduce communities' exposure to disaster risk. Recent studies (UNDRR, 2022; Guney, 2023) suggest that such justification is becoming a ‘convention’ in local practices where urbanisation is rapid and vulnerable communities are affected by their physical exposure to hazards. These studies reveal an alarming concern about how such a ‘convention’ exploits the usage of disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies to advance elite actors’ particular interests. This paper argues that Disaster capitalism in urban development is consistent with the concept that the corporate class and institutions profit from climate-induced disasters by accumulating capital and structural and non-structural neoliberal policies.

The context on peri-urban edges of Metro Manila provides a rich and deep contextual understanding of how local neoliberal practices shape the co-evolution between disaster risk and urban growth. I will examine how disaster capitalism manifests in the face of new urban development trends in Metro Manila and its greater area, focusing on disaster risk as an ‘exploitable environmental good’. This paper aims to expand the discussion on what and how do socio-political factors enable disaster risk to persist in pre-existing social vulnerability in an urban area? in doing this, it will provide a theoretical link between disaster capitalism and disaster risk using the discourse of neoliberal practices. It will deconstruct the concept of disaster capitalism, utilising the case of ‘new town’ and its role in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) discourse. The theoretical link will articulate the phenomenon and attributes of disaster capitalism in an urban setting.