The influence of emergency food aid on the causal disaster vulnerability of remote Indigenous food systems: a case study of the Bedamuni of Western Province, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Disasters are the result of a vulnerable socioecological system interacting with a hazard. Causalor the root causes ofvulnerability relates to historical and contemporary social, economic, political, cultural, and biophysical processes and factors, and human and institutional actors that increase the susceptibility of socioecological systems. Indigenous cultures throughout Papua New Guinea survived and flourished over millennia despite recurrent exposure to hazards such as El Niño-caused droughts and frosts, earthquakes, and flooding, which indicates high resilience. However, over the last century these same hazards are leading to reports of widespread hunger and the distribution of emergency food aid. The distribution of emergency food aid feeds into an existing narrative that Indigenous cultures' Publications included in this thesis Jackson, G. 2020. The influence of emergency food aid on the causal disaster vulnerability of Indigenous food systems. Agriculture and Human Values 37: 761-777.