Deconstructing disaster risk creation discourses
This review distils how disaster scholarship either implicitly or explicitly theorises the concept of disaster risk creation by employing a semi-systematic scoping strategy and thematic analysis of global literature. Disaster risk creation is inferred to be the process, or set of processes, through which risk is constructed (by human actors) in relation to (socio-)natural hazards.
Using scholarly enquiries into risk creation this review discusses why risk-creating decisions emerge and prevail, how risk reduction narratives obscure risk creation outcomes, how risk reduction initiatives can be counterproductive in their intents, and the extents of tangibility in risk-creating factors. To avoid disaster risk creation and question the continued establishment of risk-creating path dependencies, we identify a need for future research to look both at ongoing and changeable, as well as more distal, trajectory-setting processes. The outcomes of this review have the potential to enrich and advance the application of disaster risk creation within the field of disaster studies, inspiring the further interrogation and eventual deconstruction of disaster risk creation processes.
Explore further
