City Research Online

Abstract

Practice theory constitutes an emancipatory lens for reconceptualising the social construction of disaster. Framing extreme weather disasters, such as floods, fires and tropical storms as natural, places them beyond human action. By contrast, a practice lens places their consequences firmly within the realm of human action. Drawing on practice theory, we explain why framing disasters as natural exacerbates their prevalence. We note that the practices of everyday life and striving to resume those practices after disaster often take precedence over alleviating the sources of disaster. Furthermore, these practices are distributed across time and space in patterns of social order that perpetuate the tendency for disaster to disproportionately affect the most vulnerable. We conclude by issuing a call to arms to embrace the emancipatory potential of practice scholarship by exposing the disastrous consequences of mundane practice, critiquing the dominant ways of knowing that contribute to existing constructions of disaster and using social science to advocate for fundamental change.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Publisher Keywords:	equity, natural disaster, social construction, vulnerability
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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