Gender equality plans (GEPs) as a framework to devise gender equality measures for disaster research

This article endorses an inward gaze to reflect on the dynamics playing out within the disaster research in terms of gender imbalances. Importantly, the article is not a review of the studies on gender issues in disaster contexts; rather it seeks to put forth a strategy to illuminate and redress the dynamics of inequality within the disaster research community, taking the gendered power relationships as a starting point. Recently, disaster scholars have started to take a critical stance toward how disaster research is conducted and the extent to which disaster studies are inclusive toward research participants and researchers from diverse backgrounds.

In order to fill this gap, a systematic plan to collect pertinent gender data and implement appropriate measures is needed. Here, this article proposes to adopt the framework of the gender equality plans (GEPs), an instrument promoted by the European Commission to advance gender equality in research performing organizations. The actions proposed in this paper seek to encourage reflections on the structural bases upon which disaster research is organized and to support the identification of the aspects we want to preserve and of those we need to change.