Geopower

Abstract

3 This paper discusses disaster risk reduction (DRR) in the context of emerging geographical ideas 4 about topologies and assemblages. It focusses on the role of expert advice in DRR and the resulting 5 political and epistemological issues. The critical geography of disasters still struggles to communicate 6 with persistent scientific technical-rational approaches to hazard assessment. Furthermore, recent 7 studies have shown the potential for expert advice to be (mis)used for political purposes. 8Assemblage theory might be useful in opening up this hybrid area of research, as it allows a nuanced 9 view of disasters and DRR that can incorporate complex human-environmental relationships and 10 diverse knowledges. 11 are often present in human-versus-physical approaches to disasters (e.g. Gaillard and Mercer, 2013; 20 Hewitt, 1983 20 Hewitt, , 2013. Furthermore, the increased emphasis on scientific advice in the Sendai 21Framework for DRR 2015-2030 provides an important opportunity for geographers to interrogate 22 the interface between science and policy in disasters, alongside human geographical approaches to 23 vulnerability and transformation (e.g. Pelling, 2003(e.g. Pelling, , 2010Cutter, 2003). 24 This paper is highly interdisciplinary and is necessarily broad as a result. It does not aim to explore in 25 detail all of the issues that it raises, but to provide an overview of emerging themes across a range of 26 geographical literature. It is necessarily synoptic and theoretical in its approach. Initially, the paper 27 discusses recent debates in DRR research and places them in a critical geographical context related 28 to broad ideas of risk, knowledge and power. The following sections establish the theoretical 29 framework within which the paper works, elucidating first assemblage theory and then geopower. 30Finally, six interlocking dimensions of the DRR assemblage are examined, to illustrate the human-31 natural flows of power and knowledge (geopower) that reverberate through the DRR assemblage, 32 and to provide a broad framework for future research. 33 II Challenges, controversies and categories in DRR 34Disaster risk reduction (DRR) research has explicitly distanced itself from a "technical-rational" 35 model of disasters (White, 1945;Hewitt, 1983;Wisner et al., 2004Wisner et al., , 2012. It has applied the concepts 36 of vulnerability, adaptation and resilience to provide insights into the process of disaster risk 37 reduction -and produced many critiques of these concepts (e.g.

Centering at the Margins: Critical Community Resilience Praxis

“…The authors highlighted how the communities most affected by disasters themselves should be directly involved in determining the “new normal,” which requires that policymakers and disaster response plans include intentional engagements with the complexity of people’s disorientations and transformations in place and identity. These findings support Weichselgartner and Kelman’s (2014) position that increased investigations are needed to clarify “what resilience means in practice” (p. 257) and to map out roles of power relations in determining resilience, which requires innovative, qualitative, transdisciplinary research, and are typically neglected in disaster risk reduction and intervention (Donovan, 2017).…”

“…Disasters are situations, determined by life-world conditions caused by interplays between material, psychological, and socioeconomic and political dynamics and are shaped by long-standing asymmetrical power relations. In many ways, the approach to disasters discussed in this article overlaps with Donovan’s (2017) conceptualization of disasters as assemblages—as “gatherings of relationships and topologies that are characterized by an event but are defined by their content and the distribution of power” (p. 48). Furthermore, when citing Gaillard and Mercer (2013), Donovan (2017) uses assemblage theory to argue that vulnerability and local knowledge are interconnected, where problematic and inequitable distributions of power between researchers, decision makers, and marginalized communities are linked to the communities’ very vulnerabilities.…”

“…In many ways, the approach to disasters discussed in this article overlaps with Donovan’s (2017) conceptualization of disasters as assemblages—as “gatherings of relationships and topologies that are characterized by an event but are defined by their content and the distribution of power” (p. 48). Furthermore, when citing Gaillard and Mercer (2013), Donovan (2017) uses assemblage theory to argue that vulnerability and local knowledge are interconnected, where problematic and inequitable distributions of power between researchers, decision makers, and marginalized communities are linked to the communities’ very vulnerabilities. Therefore, when understanding resilience, we have argued for the importance of “centering at the margins” with a focus on transforming inequitable patterns of power through our CCRP, which involves transdisciplinary approaches, bottom-up participatory methods, intersectional analysis, and the inclusion of differently positioned stakeholders in all stages and across levels of resilience research, policy, and practice.…”

Pengelolaan Bencana Berbasis Kapasitas Lokal Di Kawasan Gunung Kelud Pasca Erupsi Tahun 2014 (Studi Etnografi Di Kawasan Rawan Bencana Gunung Kelud Kabupaten Kediri)

“…Adanya dinamika kekuasaan dan pengetahuan (Donovan, 2010, Gailard and Mercer 2013, Hayashi and Hudges, 2013 dkk. bukan hanya menyangkut scientific (pengetahuan ilmiah) dan pengetahuan lokal, tetapi juga terkait perbedaan dengan komponen yang lain dalam bencana (Donovan, 2016 (Sartohadi & Pratiwi, 2014).…”

The co-evolution of historical source materials in the geophysical, hydrological and meteorological sciences

“…Therefore, both meteorological and hydrological disciplines could benefit from exploring how the geophysical disciplines have embedded ‘incultured’ knowledge into hazard assessment and planning ( Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 ; United Nations, 2015), though it is worth noting that Gilbert White (1945) was making this same call over 70 years ago in relation to flood risk (Macdonald et al, 2012). This may reflect the engagement with the vulnerability paradigm of the international policymaker (Gaillard and Mercer, 2013), but not those at the local or regional level (often where hydrological and meteorological policy is applied), exhibiting the different scales at which natural disasters may be managed (Donovan, 2017).…”