Post-disaster research: Is there gold worth the rush?

Defining, collecting, and sharing perishable disaster data

Researchers across disciplines have long sought to collect 'perishable data' in the context of disasters. Yet, this data type is neither consistently defined nor discussed in specific detail in the literature. To address this gap, this paper defines perishable data and provides guidance on ways to improve both how it is collected and shared. Here, perishable data is conceptualised as highly transient data that may degrade in quality, be irrevocably altered, or be permanently lost if not gathered soon after it is generated. Perishable data may include ephemeral information that must be collected to characterise pre-existing hazardous conditions, near-miss events, actual disasters, and longer-term recovery processes. This data may need to be gathered at multiple points in time across varying geographic scales to accurately characterise exposure, susceptibility to harm, or coping capacity. The paper considers ethical and logistical challenges and discusses opportunities to advance equitable perishable data collection and dissemination.

Terra incognita: the contribution of disaster risk reduction in unpacking the sustainability-peace nexus

The pursuit of sustainable development in the context of global environmental change requires enhanced capability to deal with changing hazard profiles, across scales and geographies. Humans attempt to manage human and natural systems interactions in ways that minimize disaster risks, and the political expression of this ambition is the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 ('Sendai Framework'). These efforts lay the foundation for sustainable development, as since the onset of the Sendai Framework, the policy objective of disaster risk reduction has been explicitly linked to global progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. Separately, peace is a focal point of SDG 16, and widely regarded as foundational to attainment of all SDGs. Meanwhile in academic and policy arenas throughout the 2000s, evidence attests of the amplifying negative impact of climate-related disaster events on increasing violent conflict. What remains underexplored are questions of whether and how effective management of human and natural systems interaction, through disaster risk reduction, can contribute towards conditions of peace through peacebuilding. This paper explores how delivery of the Sendai Framework is necessary for sustainability, and potentially also for peace. In the context of the sustainability-peace nexus, the contribution of disaster risk reduction is terra incognita. This paper aims to deepen understanding of those under-researched tripartite links.

Linking Disaster Risk Reduction and Healthcare in Locations with Limited Accessibility: Challenges and Opportunities of Participatory Research

Disaster risk reduction and healthcare support each other, including the mitigation of further harm after illness or injury. These connections are particularly relevant in locations which have permanent or temporary limited accessibility. In these circumstances, people are required to be self-sufficient in providing emergency and long-term healthcare with limited resources. Planning and preparing to mitigate further harm after illness or injury from disasters (disaster risk reduction) must include people living and working in locations with limited accessibility, meaning that participatory research can be used. The challenges and opportunities of enacting participatory research in such contexts have not been thoroughly examined. The research question of this paper is therefore, "What challenges and opportunities occur when participatory research links disaster risk reduction and healthcare to mitigate illness and injury in locations with limited accessibility?" To answer this research question, the method used is a qualitative evidence synthesis, combined with an overview paper approach. Two principal themes of challenges and opportunities are examined: defining the data and collecting the data. The themes are explored in theory and then through contextual examples. The conclusion is that an overarching challenge is divergent goals of research and actions that, when recognized, lead to opportunities for improved connections between disaster risk reduction and healthcare.

Disaster studies inside out

Disaster studies is faced with a fascinating anomaly: frequently it claims to be critical and innovative, as suggested by the so-called vulnerability paradigm that emerged more than 40 years ago, yet often it is perpetuating some of the core and problematic tenets of the hazard paradigm that we were asked to challenge initially. This paper interrogates why such an anomaly persists. In so doing, it employs Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony to unpack why disaster studies is still dominated by Western epistemologies and scholars that perpetuate an orientalist view of disasters. Ultimately, it suggests a research agenda for the 40 years to come, which builds on the importance of local researchers analysing local disasters using local epistemologies, especially in the non-Western world. Such subaltern disaster studies are to be fuelled by increasing consciousness of the need to resist the hegemony of Western scholarship and to relocate disaster studies within the realm of its original political agenda.