Oral history, disasters and vulnerability- starting a reading list

Here are some publications that I have come across . Do you know of others? Please share with me, if you do! I’ve not included conflicts, but I have included technological disasters.

Alexievich S, Chernobyl Prayer. Penguin Books (2016)

Cross N, Barker R, eds, At the Desert’s Edge: oral histories from the Sahel. Panos Publications (undated)

Defoe D, The Storm: or, a collection of the most remarkable casualties and disasters which happen’d in the late dreadful tempest both by sea and land. Penguin Books (2005 – first published 1704)

Greene C, Kelly S, Through a Nigh of Horrors: voices from the 1900 Galveston Storm. Texas A&M University Press (2000).

Taylor R, Ward A, Newburn T, eds, The Day of the Hillsborough Disaster: a narrative account. Liverpool University Press (1995)

Blitz and beyond – lessons for the pandemic?

New research (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54834759) has found that towns and cities in England (excluding London) which suffered high casualty rates from World War II air raids more than 75 years ago are still likely to be places with high levels of child deprivation, including high levels of hardship and poor education results.  Almost all have child poverty rates well above the national average.  Self-reported life satisfaction tends to be low, and during the pandemic Covid-19 death rates in many of these areas have been relatively high.  These worst-hit places were generally working-class areas and many have stayed that way. This doesn’t mean that there is a causal link between the bombing raids and current social challenges, but it is clear that many of the areas that suffered the most continue to be left behind. Post-war redevelopment failed to create the fairer society that many had hoped for.

What relevance might these findings have for post-pandemic recovery? They show that ‘windows of opportunity’ don’t necessarily open for all – and in some cases may not open at all. Recovery won’t reduce vulnerability, inequality or everyday risks unless it is deliberately targeted towards doing so. Has anyone seen a Covid-19 recovery plan that does that?

Covid-19 as a ‘critical juncture’

I’ve been challenged recently to work out if the changes created by the Covid-19 pandemic are going to lead to fundamental changes (critical junctures’ or ‘paradigm shifts’) in the way we all lead our lives, or if this is just a temporary crisis from which we will find our way back to how we lived before. Obviously, it’s too soon to say – the evidence is very patchy and there’s too much ‘noise’ to capture the direction of change – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be thinking and planning now. Are we stepping irreversibly into a digitally controlled world? Will the amazing popular outpouring of mutual aid develop into effective and lasting movements for change? I don’t know the answers – my crystal ball is very cloudy right now – but we should all be asking the questions: ‘what’s next?’ and (just as important if not more so) ‘what are we going to do about it?’

Lessons from history for Covid-19?

History does often repeat itself, after a fashion.  It’s useful to read studies of historical disasters, epidemics and other crises, to see what has changed and what seems to be unchangeable.   So, amidst the current pandemic, I’ve finally got round to reading a book that’s been sitting on my shelves for ages, on the bubonic plague outbreak in early 1900s San Francisco (Marilyn Chase, The Barbary Plague: the black death in Victorian San Francisco. New York: Random House, 2003).  This is a fascinating and detailed study of the fight to contain an epidemic that arrived from Asia in 1900 and lasted for several years (and has still not died out entirely in wild rodent populations).

Actually, the book is about two fights.  The first was between public health specialists and the disease vectors (rats and fleas). The second involved the same public health specialists, but fighting city and state authorities, business interests and a vulnerable, immigrant community – all of whom had their own self-interested reasons for playing down the risk of plague or even denying its existence.  Both battles went on for years.  In the epilogue to her book, Chase remarks: ‘Today, as other epidemics strike, stricken countries must sometimes learn all over again that the politics of denial, commercial protectionism, and discrimination too often trump science and sound medical judgement’ (p.213). I think we’re seeing a similar politics of disaster in the response to Covid-19.

Decision makers could give themselves a head start for the next pandemic by studying the San Francisco disasters (yes, plural: not only plague but also a major earthquake in the city midway through the epidemic) and reading other books like this.

disasters and social distancing

Covid-19 is clearly having an impact on emergency response. So-called ‘social distancing’ (shouldn’t that be ‘physical’ distancing?) rules are upsetting the normal spatial rules of disaster management. A recent BBC News report on Cyclone Amphan noted that ‘Covid-19 and social-distancing measures made mass evacuations more difficult, with shelters unable to be used to full capacity’; while in the USA emergency management agencies are ‘figuring out the logistics of safely evacuating at-risk populations – even how to cajole evacuees, who might be fearful of catching the virus, from their homes‘.

Since the virus is probably here to stay and there is little likelihood of a mass-produced vaccine being available in the immediate future, the whole disaster management industry needs to rethink urgently how it will deal with population concentrations in crisis.  Conventional approaches focus on putting large numbers of people in clearly defined places of safety (e.g. public emergency shelters) or hazard-free locations; but this new hazard is ubiquitous and invisible.  It’s a challenge not only for emergency management agencies, but also for governments and public finance.  How will they deal with it?

The ‘characteristics of a disaster-resilient community’: what do we know about its impact?

A long, long time ago I worked with a group of international organizations (ActionAid, Christian Aid, Plan UK, Practical Action, Tearfund and British Red Cross)to develop the ‘Characteristics of a disaster-resilient community’: an operational tool to support planning, monitoring and evaluation of DRR projects. A pilot version of the Characteristics appeared in 2007 and was tested in the field. A revised version drawing on the lessons from the field testing was published in 2009. (You can find copies in several locations online – e.g. on PreventionWeb – https://www.preventionweb.net/publications/view/2310).

In the years since 2007, I have received and collected information about how the Characteristics tool has been used in many parts of the world and by agencies of different types. It is clear to me that the Characteristics has been influential, but the evidence is piecemeal and often anecdotal. It is time to search and collect it more widely and carefully. By doing so, we can learn not only about the journey the Characteristics has taken but also gain some insights into how knowledge and practice travel in the DRR and resilience arenas.

For this, I need your help! Please send me (j.twigg@ucl.ac.uk) any information you may have on the progress and impact of the Characteristics: it doesn’t matter when or how it was produced, who produced it, or how thorough it may be. All contributions will be gratefully received.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Will the resilience bubble burst?

Next week I’m talking about resilience at a university event (with food and wine: those are the best kinds of event).  I’m planning to be a ‘devil’s advocate’ – putting out some challenging, debatable suggestions.  Resilience is an ideal topic to treat in this way.  Here are a few spoilers about what I might say.

If the concept of resilience didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it. It’s only the latest iteration in series of attempts (by academics and operational organisations) to implement more holistic approaches to tackling the scale and complexity of disasters.  The resilience concept is so broad that almost anyone can buy into it; but it’s also a bit fuzzy and elastic, which encourages debate.  The explosion of resilience thinking and writing has taken the subject into all sorts of directions.

Is resilience no more than a changing fashion or a rebranding of existing ideas and approaches? Arguments that are given for adopting resilience are often very similar to those made previously for adopting DRR – and some of the programming approaches are identical – yet DRR is now often said to be outdated.

Resilience sounds great as a principle, but is it actionable? How do you operationalise it?  Ideas like this are mediated by institutions. Inevitably the ideas become adapted or fitted to those organisations’ capacities, ways of working and operational practices.  We can’t escape this: the institutional architecture of disasters doesn’t change that much, and the political and economic realities that underpin it are largely immovable.

Resilience sounds neutral in academic papers, but in reality it isn’t. Perhaps that is why decision-makers like it (rather than the more political overtones of vulnerability and exclusion in disaster discourse) – does it depoliticise the disaster problem?  Writers have also pointed out the ‘dark side’ of resilience: in reality, it is contested, with winners and losers; and it is inherently conservative, seeking to preserve a status quo (which could include preserving the undesirable, e.g. organised crime).

Resilience is not the sole property of the disaster community: it’s also a broader development issue – which is why Oxfam’s approach is explicitly one of ‘resilient development’. We need to remember (though we often forget) this is fundamentally about addressing people’s needs and aspirations.

 

Blog reborn?

Forgive the very long silence (if indeed you noticed it).  I’d really like to blog about the Cricket World Cup (what a game!) but since this blog is supposed to be about DRR, I should stick to the script.

What’s been happening in the DRR field?  Lots (and lots) of new publications, but where is that taking us and how much of it is new or necessary?  I sometimes wonder if the institutional uptake of DRR hasn’t stifled genuine innovation and creativity.  New(ish) themes to watch? Here are 2:

(1) DRR in conflict settings (see the recent publications by Katie Peters and others).

(2) Intersecting inequalities in relation to vulnerability and resilience (see the recent work by Daniel Chaplin, Emma Lovell and others).

OK, I admit it – I’ve been involved in both of these, one way or another.  It’s important to keep pushing the boundaries, but we shouldn’t forget the need to keep doing the basics properly, too – that’s something that often gets forgotten.  As a historian, I also recommend taking a look at where we’ve come from as well as thinking about where we’re going.

 

Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees – a resource for DRR?

I’m still trying to digest the contents of this week’s UN summit on refugees and migrants – we’ll have to wait and see what it leads to – but meanwhile here are a few thoughts on migrants, asylum seekers and DRR.  These ideas are inspired by work the Council of Europe has been doing on the subject, which will be formally presented in Lisbon on 14 October. I’ve been lucky enough to take part in this project.

So, just a few thoughts relating to inclusion of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in the DRR process (drawn from the guidelines we will be launching on 14 October):

• Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees are entitled to the same support as everyone else, on the principle of equal rights.
• It is essential to involve migrant, asylum seeker and refugee associations and groups in DRR planning. Their skills and capacities should be recognised and utilised, including their social networks and experiences in dealing with crises and overcoming hardship.
• Professionals and volunteers working in DRR should be trained in cultural diversity, intercultural communication and awareness.  They should seek to establish relationships of trust with migrants, asylum seekers and refugees

There’s much more in the publication, but for this blog post I think it’s important to highlight the capacities and resilience of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, as well as recognising the need for a much more integrated DRR approach that goes beyond emergency management/civil protection and includes other official agencies and civil society organisations supporting them (e.g. health, housing, welfare, education) as well as organisations representing them.

Refugees, migrants and DRR

I have just returned from a really interesting meeting on refugees, migrants and DRR, particularly regarding the current European refugee crisis (see also my earlier blog on the subject, posted on 5 November 2015).  I won’t attempt to summarise all the discussions, which took up a day and a half and were pretty intense, but here are a few observations about the issue.

Protection of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers against the hazards and risks they will encounter is both a present and future challenge to DRR policy and practice around the world.  Some people may think they can stop migration by putting up walls and fences, but this is naive. International migration isn’t going to go away because the forces that drive it – such as globalisation, environmental change and conflict – are powerful and enduring.  We need to rethink DRR in the light of this greater mobility of people.

In Europe at least, civil protection agencies, who are in the front line in dealing with migrants and refugees, are currently responding to rapidly-changing situations rather than anticipating them.  Moreover, it isn’t always clear which institutions have responsibility for different types of ‘non-citizen’ and their many needs at the different stages in their journeys (displacement – transit – settlement).

A broad-based, flexible and inclusive approach is needed.  Agencies need to work together. This means more than the usual inter-service collaborations between emergency managers.  Civil protection needs to integrate its work with that of other organisations: for instance, those working on social welfare, education and rights.  Civil society organisations of all kinds have an important role to play in practical assistance, solidarity and cultural exchange.

Crucially, the voices of migrants and refugees themselves need to be heard.  Like anyone else, they have a right to be consulted and involved in the decisions that affect them – as participants, not mere beneficiaries.

Their considerable capacities, resourcefulness and adaptability should also be acknowledged.  As the Sendai Framework for DRR says, “Migrants contribute to the resilience of communities and societies and their knowledge, skills and capacities can be useful in the design and implementation of disaster risk reduction​.” Now we have to find ways to make this happen.