Cultures and disasters: understanding cultural framings in disaster risk reduction

This book adopts an interdisciplinary approach to explore the cultural dimension of disasters, with contributions from leading international experts within the field. Section I provides discussion of theoretical considerations and practical research to better understand the important of culture in hazards and disasters. Culture can be interpreted widely with many different perspectives; this enables us to critically consider the cultural boundedness of research itself, as well as the complexities of incorporating various interpretations into disaster risk reduction (DRR). If culture is omitted, related issues of adaptation, coping, intervention, knowledge and power relations cannot be fully grasped. Section II explores what aspects of culture shape resilience, how people have operationalized culture in every day life to establish DRR practice, what constitutes a resilient culture and what role culture plays in a society’s decision making. The book outlines that while it is natural for people to seek refuge in tried and trust methods of disaster mitigation, culture and belief systems are constantly evolving. How these coping strategies can be introduced into DRR therefore poses a challenging question. Finally, Section III examines the effectiveness of key scientific frameworks for understanding the role of culture in disaster risk reduction and management. DRR includes a range of norms and breaking these through an understanding of cultural will challenge established theoretical and empirical frameworks.