The social responsibility of advocating for what is right, just and equitable

Citation

Luna, J.C.G.a.E. (2013), "The social responsibility of advocating for what is right, just and equitable", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 22 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM.07322aaa.001

The social responsibility of advocating for what is right, just and equitable

Article Type: Editorial From: Disaster Prevention and Management, Volume 22, Issue 1.

From 26 November to 7 December 2012, diplomats, scientists and civil society met in Doha Qatar for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change to negotiate a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol. It also aimed to lay the groundwork for a new global treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020.

The scope of this meeting emphasises how the dominant policies geared towards facing the impact of climate change and disaster at large are still focusing on extreme hazards at the detriment of people's everyday vulnerability and capacities. It further reflects how few has been learnt from 100 years of disaster studies which have consistently underlines that the root causes of the harm are to be traced to unequal access to resources and means of protection amongst the most marginalised segments of society (e.g. Hewitt, 1983; Wisner et al., 2012).

During the climate change conference in Doha, as the delegates from 195 countries wrestled with the voluminous papers needing decision and actions to cut global carbon emission, Typhoon Bopha was devastating the Philippines, hitting the southern regions. Typhoon Bopha exited the Philippine area of responsibility on the 8 December, the same day the UN Conference ended, affecting 5.4 million people, with 540 dead and 827 missing (National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, 2012). It is not surprising therefore that the head of the Philippine delegation, Naderev Saño, made an appeal to the body:

As we sit here, every single hour, even as we vacillate and procrastinate here, the death toll is rising. There is massive and widespread devastation. Hundreds of thousands of people have been rendered without homes […] in a part of the country that has never seen a storm like this in half a century […]. tragedies like this is not unique to the Philippines, because the whole world, especially developing countries struggling to address poverty and achieve social and human development, confront these same realities […] let Doha be remembered as the place where we found the political will to turn things around […] let 2012 be remembered as the year the world found the courage to find the will to take responsibility for the future we want.

A few weeks before, in October 2012, the world's attention was taken by the way Hurricane Sandy paralysed New York and New Jersey, causing devastating floods and power failure for a week. Our friends from America described, through social media, how they suffered from the lack of electricity, used candles to light their house and withstood the colds through their fireplaces, while others were forced to stay in hotels to cope with the situation.

The latter event shows that extreme vulnerability in facing natural hazards is not an intrinsic attribute of less affluent countries such as the Philippines. It further demonstrates that dominant policies fostering transfers of experience, technology and funding from wealthy countries to those struggling with everyday development issues are obsolete and fail to recognise the root causes of disasters all throughout the world. The traditional technocratic and technological ways and designs to face natural hazards therefore require re-thinking and change, wherever we are. As the impact of disasters is felt in more areas and with greater magnitude, the more it is needed to take this matter openly in public discourses.

Publication as an academic endeavour carries also the social responsibility of advocating for what is right, just and equitable. From the ivory towers that proclaim academic excellence, we need to extend our visions and concerns on the ground and be part of the process of developing knowledge from popular sources and methodologies. We need to address issues and concerns that bring sufferings to humanity and threaten the world's sustainability. We need to link people, ideas, spaces and actions that can respond to the multiple demands for surviving and ensuring security.

As the first issue of Disaster Prevention and Management (DPM) in 2013, we take cognisance of the reality of disasters as social events and processes in the path of the so-called vulnerability approach which emerged in the 1970s (e.g. Gaillard, 2010 for an historical summary). We, however, recognise that disasters events are associated with different forms of hazards, including natural phenomena, technological accidents, criminality and conflicts, complex emergencies, transportation accidents, poverty and other social and economic threats.

In that context, DPM sets out to advance knowledge in the broad field of disaster risk reduction and management. It aims at providing a platform for bridging the gap between a large array of academic disciplines and stakeholders, including policy makers, practitioners and representatives of the civil society and local communities. This is DPM's contributions to the multi-disciplinary and multi-actor perspectives field of disaster risk reduction and management.

The journal publishes conceptual and theoretical reflections, methodological contributions, policy and practice briefings, case studies, reports from the field and book reviews. All papers are short and straightforward to be accessible to a large audience. It is also our intention to encourage the contribution of junior scholars. One issue per year will hence be dedicated to papers written by young researchers and students of any levels and disciplines.

We further recognise the need to encourage participation of scholars from less affluent countries and non-native English speakers in the production of knowledge and publication of the same. This is one way to address inequality in the access to publications and dissemination of researches, policies and other scholarly contributions. Thus we provide support authors to assist them throughout the reviewing and publication of their manuscript.

Today's DPM issue is comprised of seven research papers and a review of P. Virilio's book The University of Disaster. The authors and the cases discussed in the papers come from Norway, Finland, Sweden, UK, Canada, USA, Chile, Iran, China and Korea. They deal with a variety of hazards and disasters: climate change related hazards, “accidents”, earthquakes, wars, and subway terrorism and fires.

Accidents by definition are also disasters. “Normal disasters” perspective as conceived by Charles Perrows is the subject of a conceptual exploration by Silvast and Kelman to understand whether or not it might be feasible to disprove the perspective, or to find counter examples.

Johansson et al. present a concept called IntERC or Integrated Education, Research and Collaboration where social learning is used in capacity building. This was exemplified in linking disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and flood risk management. Related to education and communication is the paper of Benavides which looks at the Spanish media's efforts in warning and preparing its listeners for local and national emergencies. Disaster preparedness is also the focus of Kim in his paper that analyses three simulation exercises in Korea involving subway counter terrorism, earthquake and subway fire.

Three papers deal with post disaster response and recovery. Lewis looks at the process towards human and community resilience in a German town in the 1945 aftermath of war. He identified the requirements of resilience in communities destroyed by war. Using the 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran as the case, Rafieian and Asgary examine the impacts of temporary shelter on housing reconstruction after disaster. The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake was the starting point of Xu and Lu in making a comparative study of aid models of external assistance for better post-disaster recovery.

There is no guarantee that the natural hazards that struck before, resulting in losses, will never occur. However, the impacts of these natural and human-induced hazards can be mitigated if risk reduction is adopted by all concerned stakeholders, including international organisations, governments, non-government organisations, local communities, faith groups, etc. The papers in this issue present some mechanisms for disaster risk reduction before, during and post disasters. Disasters can happen anywhere, anytime. Similarly we can always reduce risks, anywhere, anytime.

J.C. Gaillard and Emmanuel Luna

References

Gaillard, J.C. (2010), “Vulnerability, capacity, and resilience: perspectives for climate and development policy”, Journal of International Development, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 218-32
Hewitt, K. (1983), “The idea of calamity in a technocratic age”, in Hewitt, K. (Ed.), Interpretation of Calamities, Allen & Unwin, Boston, MA, pp. 3-32
National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (2012), SitRep No. 20 Re Effects of Typhoon “Pablo” (Bopha), National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, Quezon City
Wisner, B., Gaillard, J.C. and Kelman, I. (Eds) (2012), Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction, Routledge, London