Disaster Citizenship

A century ago, governments buoyed by Progressive Era–beliefs began to assume greater responsibility for protecting and rescuing citizens. Yet the aftermath of two disasters in the United States-Canada borderlands--the Salem Fire of 1914 and the Halifax Explosion of 1917--saw working class survivors instead turn to friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family members for succor and aid. Both official and unofficial responses, meanwhile, showed how the United States and Canada were linked by experts, workers, and money. In Disaster Citizenship , Jacob A. C. Remes draws on histories of the Salem and Halifax events to explore the institutions--both formal and informal--that ordinary people relied upon in times of crisis. He explores patterns and traditions of self-help, informal order, and solidarity and details how people adapted these traditions when necessary. Yet, as he shows, these methods--though often quick and effective--remained illegible to reformers. Indeed, soldiers, social workers, and reformers wielding extraordinary emergency powers challenged these grassroots practices to impose progressive "solutions" on what they wrongly imagined to be a fractured social landscape. Innovative and engaging, Disaster Citizenship excavates the forgotten networks of solidarity and obligation in an earlier time while simultaneously suggesting new frameworks in the emerging field of critical disaster studies.

From ‘Duck and Cover’ in the 1950s, when American schoolchildren were instructed to hide beneath their desks in the event of nuclear attack to contemporary campaigns against pandemic flu, education campaigns have been used to prepare the general public for apocalyptic events. Governments have made use of various media from films, leaflets and television to the internet to inform, inspire and scare populations. Forms of disaster education also permeate popular culture with films and television programmes illustrating survival techniques from dealing with terrorist attacks in ‘24’ to thwarting zombie apocalypse in ‘The Walking Dead’ and ’28 Days Later’ . Using critical race theory and whiteness studies the book argues that information about disasters has always, tacitly or overtly, prioritised the survival of certain groups of citizens above others. Drawing on examples from the UK and the US, from past and contemporary disaster education and popular culture, it considers that rather than being kitsch, naïve and ephemeral, such campaigns are central to the way in which states define survival, life and death. The book will be of interest to educationalists, historians, sociologists and cultural theorists as well as those working in emergency planning, public health and communications.

On April 26, 1986, Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in then Soviet Ukraine. More than 3.5 million people in Ukraine alone are still suffering the effects. This text examines the political, scientific and social circumstances that followed the disaster.

In 2009, after seismic tremors struck the Italian mountain town of L'Aquila, survivors were subjected to a "second earthquake"—invasive media attention and a relief effort that left them in a state of suspended citizenship as they were forcibly resettled and had to envision a new future. In Citizens without a City, Jan-Jonathan Bock reveals how a disproportionate government response exacerbated survivors' sense of crisis, divided the local population, and induced new types of political action. Italy's disenfranchising emergency reaction relocated citizens to camps and sites across a ruined townscape, without a plan for restoration or return. Through grassroots politics, arts and culture, commemoration rituals, architectural projects, and legal avenues, local people now sought to shape their hometown's recovery. Bock combines an analysis of the catastrophe's impact with insights into post-disaster civic life, urban heritage, the politics of mourning, and community fragmentation. A fascinating read for anyone interested in urban culture, disaster, and politics, Citizens without a City illustrates how survivors battled to retain a sense of purpose and community after the L'Aquila earthquake.

This book brings together interdisciplinary perspectives from across the Asia Pacific region, covering four main sections: 1) Governance, 2) Education and Capacity, 3) Science, Technology, Risk Assessment and Communities, and 4) Recovery. The chapters address different dimensions of Sendai Framework of Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), which are linked to Sustainable Development Goals, as well as Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Disasters are an increasingly common and complex combination of environmental, social and cultural factors. Yet existing response frameworks and emergency plans tend to homogenise affected populations as ‘victims’, overlooking the distinctive experience, capacities and skills of children and young people. Drawing on participatory research with more than 550 children internationally, this book argues for a radical transformation in children’s roles and voices in disasters. It shows practitioners, policy-makers and researchers how more child-centred disaster management, that recognises children’s capacity to enhance disaster resilience, actually benefits at-risk communities as a whole.