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1 – 10 of 141
Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 May 2020

Angelo Jonas Imperiale and Frank Vanclay

We consider what happened in the initial reconstruction interventions following the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila (Italy). Using the disaster risk reduction and resilience…

3432

Abstract

Purpose

We consider what happened in the initial reconstruction interventions following the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila (Italy). Using the disaster risk reduction and resilience paradigm, we discuss the cognitive and interactional failures of top-down approaches, and we analyse the main constraints to enacting inclusive social learning and socially-sustainable transformation and building back better more resilient communities in post-disaster reconstruction.

Design/methodology/approach

Our evidence comes from participant observation, action anthropology and analytic auto-ethnography conducted during the reconstruction phase following the L'Aquila earthquake. Findings were triangulated with document analysis, media analysis and retrospective interviewing conducted in 2013 and 2017.

Findings

The shift from civil defence to civil protection did not bring any advance in disaster management and development practice in terms of DRR and resilience. The militaristic command-and-control approach, which is still in vogue among civil protection systems, means that local political leaders become the civil protection authorities in a disaster area. As in the L'Aquila case, this exacerbates local social and environmental risks and impacts, inhibits local communities from learning and restricts them from participating in post-disaster interventions.

Originality/value

Most previous commentary on disaster recovery and reconstruction following the L'Aquila earthquake has focussed on the top-down approach carried out by the national government and the Italian Department of Civil Protection (DCP). This paper is unique in that it sheds light on how the command-and-control approach was also implemented by local authority figures and on how this undermined building back better more resilient communities.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 29 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 21 July 2020

Gonzalo Lizarralde, Holmes Páez, Adriana Lopez, Oswaldo Lopez, Lisa Bornstein, Kevin Gould, Benjamin Herazo and Lissette Muñoz

Few people living in informal settlements in the Global South spontaneously claim that they are “resilient” or “adapting” to disaster risk or climate change. Surely, they often…

2386

Abstract

Purpose

Few people living in informal settlements in the Global South spontaneously claim that they are “resilient” or “adapting” to disaster risk or climate change. Surely, they often overcome multiple challenges, including natural hazards exacerbated by climate change. Yet their actions are increasingly examined through the framework of resilience, a notion developed in the North, and increasingly adopted in the South. To what extent eliminate’ do these initiatives correspond to the concepts that scholars and authorities place under the resilience framework?

Design/methodology/approach

Three longitudinal case studies in Yumbo, Salgar and San Andrés (Colombia) serve to investigate narratives of disaster risks and responses to them. Methods include narrative analysis from policy and project documents, presentations, five workshops, six focus groups and 24 interviews.

Findings

The discourse adopted by most international scholars and local authorities differs greatly from that used by citizens to explain risk and masks the politics involved in disaster reduction and the search for social justice. Besides, narratives of social change, aspirations and social status are increasingly masked in disaster risk explanations. Tensions are also concealed, including those regarding the winners and losers of interventions and the responsibilities for disaster risk reduction.

Originality/value

Our findings confirm previous results that have shown that the resilience framework contributes to “depoliticize” the analysis of risk and serves to mask and dilute the responsibility of political and economic elites in disaster risk creation. But they also show that resilience fails to explain the type of socioeconomic change that is required to reduce vulnerabilities in Latin America.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 29 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 26 March 2021

Hiroki Takakura

This study examines fisheries affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011 to explore how the collectivism appears during the recovery process.

1873

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines fisheries affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011 to explore how the collectivism appears during the recovery process.

Design/methodology/approach

The author questions the context of collaboration after the disaster among independent small-scale fishers in Miyagi by conducting semistructured interviews with more than 50 local fishers with anthropological observations of boat fishing operations and using local documents and statistics.

Findings

The corresponding collaboration among the fishers after the disaster is not a mere “disaster utopia,” but is embedded in the socioecological context of fishing. Fishers have developed individual and group fishing. They have institutionalized competitive distribution for sedentary fish with low resource fluctuation, while outcome-equal distribution is adopted for migratory fish with high resource fluctuation. This forms a fishing continuum that connects competitive individualism with collectivism in the community, which has contributed to resilience for disaster recovery.

Originality/value

The balance between individualism and collectivism is decisively coordinated in socioecological contexts. The multifaceted resource strategy for maritime biodiversity that features family-based occupational differentiation in a community is crucial for disaster recovery of small-scale fishers.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 30 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Sport, Gender and Development
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-863-0

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 11 July 2017

Pietro Saitta

The purpose of this paper is to explore the links between “informal economies” and the concept of “resistance.” The author argues that the petty illegalities of the dominated and…

1985

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the links between “informal economies” and the concept of “resistance.” The author argues that the petty illegalities of the dominated and subaltern classes should be seen in their connections to the illegalism of the élites and the state. Within this framework, the informal economy is seen as both the outcome of a set of material conditions aiming at the subordinated inclusion of entire classes of citizens, and the mark of the willingness by these same subalterns to evade the bonds imposed on them by the legislations and the social hierarchies.

Design/methodology/approach

A review of the ethnographical and socio-economical literature on the issue of informality, accompanied by ex-post reflections on pertinent studies conducted in the past by the researcher.

Findings

Against the dominant public rhetoric, the informal economy is here seen as a particular space of enactment by the dominated and subalterns aimed at self-producing paradoxical forms of inclusion within social contexts characterized by barriers to access integration within mainstream society. It is argued that in consideration of the power relations that structure the “field,” researchers themselves become part of the struggle counterpoising individuals and institutions, and should thus make a choice among the clashing parties.

Originality/value

The paper draws on a vast body of literature that appears to go in the same direction. However, it radicalizes the instances proposed by previous authors and studies, and draws conclusions concerning the nature of the object and the ethics of research, that are opposed to the prevalent approaches to the subject.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 37 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 19 March 2024

Freya Higgins-Desbiolles

This viewpoint engages with Jem Bendell’s deep adaptation framework which was developed as a response to the threat of collapse. Proponents of deep adaptation argue that societal…

Abstract

Purpose

This viewpoint engages with Jem Bendell’s deep adaptation framework which was developed as a response to the threat of collapse. Proponents of deep adaptation argue that societal collapse is either likely, inevitable or already underway. The deep adaptation framework is employed as a tool to contemplate the necessary adaptation of tourism development and planning in a context of polycrisis leading to collapse.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual viewpoint article that is built on deductive analysis of recent events, reports and scientific findings. It employs the deep adaptation framework to analyse possible alternative tourism futures in the face of the threat of collapse.

Findings

Bendell’s framework included four aspects of response to the recognition of the threat of collapse: resilience, relinquishment, restoration and reconciliation. In this work, the deep adaptation framework is employed to analyse what a deep adaptation approach to tourism might offer for efforts in securing optimal social and ecological outcomes. Findings highlight damaging activities that we should relinquish, more resilient approaches that communities could encourage and restorative practices such as rewilding and pluriversal economies as protective measures. This work recommends a precautionary approach to transform tourism education, research and practice in order to secure better tourism futures.

Originality/value

This work is novel in engaging with the threat of future collapse and in using the deep adaptation framework to consider alternative tourism futures.

Details

Journal of Tourism Futures, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2055-5911

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 12 December 2023

Logan Crace, Joel Gehman and Michael Lounsbury

Reality breakdowns generate reflexivity and awareness of the constructed nature of social reality. These pivotal moments can motivate institutional inhabitants to either modify…

Abstract

Reality breakdowns generate reflexivity and awareness of the constructed nature of social reality. These pivotal moments can motivate institutional inhabitants to either modify their social worlds or reaffirm the status quo. Thus, reality breakdowns are the initial points at which actors can conceive of new possibilities for institutional arrangements and initiate change processes to realize them. Studying reality breakdowns enables scholars to understand not just how institutional change occurs, but also why it does or does not do so. In this paper, we investigate how institutional inhabitants responded to a reality breakdown that occurred during our ethnography of collegial governance in a large North American university that was undergoing a strategic change initiative. Our findings suggest that there is a consequential process following reality breakdowns whereby institutional inhabitants construct the severity of these events. In our context, institutional inhabitants first attempted to restore order to their social world by reaffirming the status quo; when their efforts failed, they began to formulate alternative possibilities. Simultaneously, they engaged in a distributed sensemaking process whereby they diminished and reoriented necessary changes, ultimately inhibiting the formulation of these new possibilities. Our findings confirm reality breakdowns and institutional awareness as potential drivers of institutional change and complicate our understanding of antecedent microprocesses that may forestall the initiation of change efforts.

Details

Revitalizing Collegiality: Restoring Faculty Authority in Universities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-818-8

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 6 June 2019

Jasper Hotho and Verena Girschik

The purpose of this paper is to open up new lines of research into the engagement of corporations during humanitarian crises. The paper provides an introduction to core concepts…

10675

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to open up new lines of research into the engagement of corporations during humanitarian crises. The paper provides an introduction to core concepts in the delivery of humanitarian assistance, as well as a comprehensive overview of when, why, how, and to what effect corporations engage in humanitarian action.

Design/methodology/approach

Building on extant literature and policy reports, the paper synthesizes concepts and insights to map the interdisciplinary field of research on corporate engagement in humanitarian action.

Findings

The paper systematically reviews and describes different dimensions of corporate engagement for delivering humanitarian action and explains key complications that inspire new research questions. In particular, the paper highlights challenges associated with getting corporations to engage in humanitarian action; challenges associated with ensuring effective corporate engagement; and challenges associated with ensuring ethical engagement.

Originality/value

By raising new questions about corporate engagement in humanitarian action, this paper develops an original and positive research agenda for international business, management research, and related fields.

Details

critical perspectives on international business, vol. 15 no. 2/3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1742-2043

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 19 November 2019

Guy Major and Jonathan Preminger

Both the academic literature and practitioners have long noted the need for an equity investment mechanism for worker-controlled firms that alleviates investor anxieties without…

1097

Abstract

Purpose

Both the academic literature and practitioners have long noted the need for an equity investment mechanism for worker-controlled firms that alleviates investor anxieties without undermining internal workplace democracy. The purpose of this paper is to outline one such possible mechanism.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposal locks together the interests of workers and external investors, via non-voting shares with dividends set by a pre-agreed value-added sharing formula. Each worker is paid a base wage, with the average across the firm being a pre-defined multiple of the national minimum wage. Any additional surplus is split into a number of equal “slices”, with each share receiving one slice as its dividend, and the average worker receiving a pre-agreed number of slices as a bonus.

Findings

Workers have an incentive to maximise their own incomes, and in so doing, will also automatically maximise the dividends received by investors, obviating the need for the shares to have normal voting rights. Working on this principle of aligned interests, the authors also discuss reinvestment, worker ownership of non-voting shares and possibilities for a secondary share market. The authors show how this proposal will be a significant step in aligning the interests of investors with owner-workers in a democratic, negotiated way that shares both risk and returns, thus making worker-controlled firms more attractive to equity investment.

Originality/value

In light of the recognised problem of underinvestment in worker-controlled firms and the risk of their degeneration, this paper will interest both academics and practitioners in employee ownership, co-operatives and various forms of workplace democracy.

Details

Journal of Participation and Employee Ownership, vol. 2 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2514-7641

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 July 2021

Olga Dziubaniuk, Maria Ivanova-Gongne and Ekaterina Berdysheva

This study aims to explore the challenges and complexities of interaction in international stakeholder networks within the context of projects focused on the implementation of…

2970

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the challenges and complexities of interaction in international stakeholder networks within the context of projects focused on the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs). In particular, it examines the challenges faced by stakeholders in a network from a developed country during interaction in the context of a developing country.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a qualitative approach, this study analyses interview data collected from the key managers of an international consulting company in charge of a water supply and sanitation project in Nepal. The primary data is triangulated with secondary data, such as project reports and related academic articles.

Findings

This study illustrates how interaction in international stakeholder networks affects and is interrelated with SDGs, as well as how aiming to achieve one specific goal can stimulate the implementation of other sustainable goals. Further, this research shows how project managers from a developed country had to adapt to the specifics of the developing country context and how their sustainability project influenced the well-being of local communities by improving environmental and social sustainability.

Research limitations/implications

The research suggests that challenges in stakeholder interaction may arise because of differences in process management methods used by the international stakeholders involved in the project and country-context specifics, such as corruption, imperfect national regulations, cultural specifics, effects of climate change, etc.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the literature on international multi-stakeholder interaction between actors from developed and developing countries. Furthermore, it adds to the literature on stakeholder networking by highlighting the importance of engaging in a dialogue with local communities during the conceptualisation stages of both sustainability and SDG implementation because of diverging worldviews and practices.

Details

critical perspectives on international business, vol. 18 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1742-2043

Keywords

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