In 1976 in a paper entitled ‘Taking The Naturalness Out Of Natural Disasters’ proposed that no disaster is natural. However, the term ‘natural disasters’ is still widely used and difficult to shake off. So much so that in 2021 UNDRR found it necessary to launch the #NoNaturalDisasters campaign to underscore the idea that disasters don’t just happen - they’re made.
The ‘Disaster Makers’ YouTube series, created by Terry Gibson at Inventing Futures, takes that idea and asks – ‘if disasters are made, then who by?’ Are they caused by malevolent individuals, or by organisations, or the result of systems, or possibly to some extent by all three? To answer that question, the series takes a local-level perspective, focusing on what it calls ‘everyday disasters’, the small-scale frequent events that UNDRR terms ‘extensive disasters’. Whatever the terminology the reality is that these small-scale events, often unreported and unrecorded, are the cause of 45% of disaster losses, according to the UNDRR GAR 2015. Though a grinding everyday reality for billions vulnerable to them in villages, towns and cities round the world, they have be largely ignored. They rose to brief prominence in that GAR, which provided the research backdrop to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, though since then the focus has shifted back to larger scale intensive disasters.
Everyday disasters are, however, an incredibly important starting point for understanding how disasters are constructed. The Disaster Makers video series traces the processes that construct everyday disasters – which often, in turn, contribute to the construction of major disaster events. It’s based on stories and case studies from producer Terry Gibson’s vast experience of local disaster reduction activities at the Global Network for Disaster Reduction, filmmaking for aid agencies, and through his doctoral research and writing.
The current titles (with release dates) are:
- ‘Disasters Aren’t What You Think They Are’ (20th Feb 2025) unpacks the ‘no natural disasters’ message with three local-level case studies.
- ‘Revealing Hidden Disasters’ (20th Feb 2025) shows how unreported and unrecorded everyday disasters can be made visible and what is revealed about their nature and impact.
- ‘What Lies Behind Disasters’ (20th Feb 2025) shows how disasters are constructed through human choices through several case studies.
- ‘A Volcanic Eruption Is Not Necessarily A Disaster’ (28th Feb 2025) combines the cases in the first three videos to explain the basic relationship between hazards, vulnerability, and risk.
- ‘Before And After Mitch: Anatomy Of A Disaster’ (14th March 2025) takes the case study of Hurricane Mitch, the event itself, and what happened in the decades before and after it to show how the impact of the event is shaped by what happens both before and after it.
The series will grow with regular new releases and can be found here. This is not just a broadcasting channel; it’s a growing community where subscribers can collaborate, discuss, and contribute their own ideas and thoughts. The channel is free and open to all who wish to view and participate.