Disasters, Resistance and Change: The Politics of Disaster Risk Creation
Disasters, Resistance and Change: The Politics of Disaster Risk Creation
Wednesday, 9 July 2025: 09:00-10:45
Location: SJES023 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
RC39 Sociology of Disasters (host committee) TG04 Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty
Language: English
The vulnerability paradigm developed by disaster scholars in the 1970s demonstrated the social character of disasters such as floods or droughts. This enlarged the social responsibility, thematic scope and spatial and temporal scales through which we research disasters. However, as argued in more recent paradigms such as Critical Disaster Studies, the focus of contemporary disaster policy and practice is still largely on quick, technical and individual fixes, and does not sufficiently consider disaster root causes and risk creation processes. This disaster practice cements the status quo and is not conducive to the necessary socio-ecological transformations needed to avoid disasters. We need to develop a different approach to understand the power dynamics of disasters.
In this regular session, we approach disasters as symptoms of unsustainable societies and ask how they can be (re)politicised. This entails discussions on the individual and collective experiences of those directly affected by disasters and on the politics of knowledge. How do myriad interpretations restrict or expand the political dimensions of disasters and associated humanitarian crises? How are collective disaster experiences re-centred in social movements pointing towards disaster root causes? How do different dimensions of justice, such as social and environmental, converge in practices and discourses pushing for transformation?
The session invites participants to send abstracts, for example, on:
- Empirical case studies across the global north and south
- Comparative analyses of disaster experiences
- Theoretical contributions on the links between disaster causation and politics
- Transdisciplinary approaches including social movement members, policymakers and affected citizens.
Session Organizers:
Oral Presentations
See more of: RC39 Sociology of Disasters
See more of: TG04 Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty
See more of: Research Committees
See more of: TG04 Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty
See more of: Research Committees