DRR Interview with Terry Cannon: disaster studies: why is class being ignored?
Disaster Prevention and Management
ISSN: 0965-3562
Article publication date: 2 January 2024
Issue publication date: 29 March 2024
Abstract
Purpose
The transcript is of one from a number of interviews with disaster risk reduction (DRR) “pioneers” carried out in 2022 as a part of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) project to record the history of the field. It aims to enable one of the “pioneers” to explain his role in the emergence of disaster studies and provide critical commentary on what he considers is wrong with current DRR approaches.
Design/methodology/approach
Terry Cannon was interviewed to explain the beginnings of his involvement in disasters research and to comment on his views on progress in the field of disaster risk reduction since his early work in the 1980s. The transcript and video were developed in the context of the UNDRR project on the history of DRR.
Findings
The interview provides an account of the origins of the book “At Risk” and why it was considered necessary. This is put into the context of how the field of DRR has emerged since the 1980s. It elicits opinions on what he considers the gaps in both his early work (especially in the book “At Risk” of which he was a co-author) and in the field of DRR recently.
Originality/value
It provides historical context on how early disaster research developed the alternative framework of “social construction” of disasters, in opposition to the idea that they are “natural”. It challenges some of the approaches that have emerged as DRR and has been institutionalised, including its increasing difficulty in supporting the ideas of social construction.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
As this manuscript is a transcript of a historical interview, the peer review has not been anonymous
Citation
Cannon, T. (2024), "DRR Interview with Terry Cannon: disaster studies: why is class being ignored?", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 24-38. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-10-2023-0254
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited