Politicizing disaster governance: Can a board game stimulate discussions around disasters as matters of concern?

Abstract

The disaster risk reduction (DRR) community tends to treat disasters and risks in a managerial and technocratic way, thereby disregarding the highly political nature of DRR. An alternative epistemology of disasters, as “matters of concern”, is proposed and tested. Mobilizing concepts from Chantal Mouffe and Bruno Latour, this paper illustrates how DRR can be transformed into a public issue. It is argued that education and policymaking on DRR would benefit from a recognition of the hybrid nature of disasters. A serious game is used to investigate proposed epistemology. The board game simulates political decision-making on the reduction of risks due to floods and landslides in South-West Uganda. It is hypothesized that the game can generate an ideal speech scenario that fosters discussions among players and possibly even creates a space of political confrontation. Discussions during ten gameplays have been recorded, transcribed and analyzed (1) to understand how the dominant epistemology facilitates an apolitical approach to disasters and (2) to understand the process of politicization and de-politicization brought about when playing the board game in order to derive recommendations for future tools to facilitate a political appreciation of disasters. Our results indicate that participants effectively experience affects, power relations and confrontations during the game, but that a call for consensus and technical solutions is used by the players to close the discussions and move on with concrete solutions. Insights from this paper contribute to understanding why DRR is frequently treated as a technical issue in local and international disaster governance. Epistemology and approaches proposed in this paper are expected to stimulate innovative experiments towards a more political approach to DRR education and policy.

Foundations of indigenous knowledge on disasters due to natural hazards: lessons from the outlook on floods among the Bayira of the Rwenzori region

“…Moreover, openness to knowledge production points to the capacity of indigenous people utilising various means, including modern science, to boost their understanding of, and practices concerning, natural hazards. Recent studies suggest that this is possible insofar as the ground is levelled (Balay‐As, Marlowe, and Gaillard, 2018; Maes et al, 2019; Bwambale and Kervyn, 2021; Mertens, Bwambale, and Delima, 2022).…”

Reassembling disaster risk: towards a more self-reflexive and enabling geography

“…‫ﻻ‬ The risk equation has been criticized for its tendency to facilitate technocratic solutions to the issue of disasters (Maes et al, 2018;Mertens et al, 2022;Tierney, 2012).…”

“…While I do not elaborate on this here, I think this parallel deserves further reflection. An expansion of the semiotical foundations of Laclau to the material-semiotics of Harraway, Latour, Stengers, Mol,… could productively be mobilized for an analysis of the political (see Blaser (2014) and Mertens et al (2022) for attempts).…”

Re-assembling land degradation: toward a nature-society-inclusive soil erosion management strategy. A case of the Rwenzori region, Uganda

“…The management of soil erosion has not just continuously pointed to an understanding of land degradation as an assemblage or hybrid of the natural and anthropogenic aspects, but also, an epistemology that levels the grounds between scientists, policymakers, and farmers whose farm production, as well as livelihoods, are at-risk (Latour, 1993;Boardman, 2006;Ashmore, 2015;Poesen, 2018;Tibasiima et al, 2022;Mertens et al, 2023). The assemblage perspective welcomes different ontological groups, thereby enabling conceptualizing phenomena across multiple disciplines, including natural and social sciences, as well as among farmers, scientists, and policymakers.…”

“…(2) self-critiques, which is a core process since it opens space for equitation socio-political deliberation. Thus, an environmental issue is considered as a social nature as well as a matter of concern as opposed to a matter of fact that would preclude dialogue (Mertens et al, 2023). In other words, geopolitics is here apprehended as a space of free discussions that pave the way to a rational consensus (Mouffe, 2011).…”