A Decade of Disaster Experiences in Otautahi Christchurch: Critical Disaster Studies Perspectives

by Shinya Uekusa (Editor), Steve Matthewman (Editor), Bruce C. Glavovic (Editor)

Overview

This book critically surveys a decade of disasters in Ōtautahi Christchurch. It brings together a diverse range of authors, disciplinary approaches and topics, to reckon with the events that commenced with the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence. Each contribution tackles its subject matter through the frame of Critical Disaster Studies (CDS). The events and the subsequent recovery provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn from a series of concatenating urban disasters in order to prepare us for our future on an urban planet facing unprecedented environmental pressures. The book focuses on the production of vulnerability, the human dimensions of disaster, the Indigenous response to disasters and the practical lessons that can be drawn from them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789811668623
Publisher:	Springer Nature Singapore
Publication date:	02/14/2022
Edition description:	1st ed. 2022
Pages:	405
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Shinya Uekusa is a disaster sociologist and most recently works as an Assistant Professor in the School of Culture and Society at Aarhus University in Denmark. He has returned to Aotearoa and joined Massey University’s Health and Ageing Research Team (HART) to work on the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) funded research project on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on older people in Aotearoa. His main research interests are in (im)migration, the sociology of language, and disaster sociology, particularly focusing on how the socially disadvantaged groups such as (im)migrants, refugees and linguistic minorities experience and cope with cultural, economic, environmental, political and social challenges.

Steve Matthewman is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Auckland. His last book on disasters was Disasters, Risks and Revelation: Making Sense of Our Times (2015). He also co-edited Exploring Society: Sociology forNew Zealand Students (Auckland University Press, 2019) with Ruth McManus, and the third edition of Being Sociological (Red Globe Press) with Bruce Curtis and David Mayeda. His current research project is a three-year Royal Society of New Zealand-funded work “Power Politics: Electricity and Sustainability in Post-Disaster Ōtautahi (Christchurch)”. The broad focus of this research is on how we build sustainability into the city. The narrow focus is on the place of renewable energy in this process.

Bruce C. Glavovic is a Professor at Massey University. For much of the last decade his research has focused on the role of governance and natural hazards planning in addressing vulnerability and risk in a changing climate. He is Senior Editor for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science and co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Ocean & Coastal Management. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the chapter on sea level rise ina 2019 IPCC Special Report and is a Lead Author and Cross Chapter Paper co-lead in the IPCC’s forthcoming Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report.

Table of Contents

PART I: Introduction.- 1. Contextualising the decade of disaster experiences in Ōtautahi Christchurch, and the Critical Disaster Studies imperative. By Steve Matthewman, Shinya Uekusa & Bruce Glavovic.- 2. Critical Disaster Studies: The evolution of a paradigm. By Anthony Oliver-Smith.- PART II: Critical framings of disasters.- 3. Elite panic and pathologies of governance before and after the Canterbury earthquake sequence. By Roy Montgomery.- 4. The ruptured city ten years on. By Katie Pickles.- 5. Critical Indigenous Disaster Studies: Doomed to resilience. By Simon Lambert.- 6. Rethinking community resilience: Critical reflections on the last 10 years of the Ōtautahi Christchurch recovery and on-going disasters. By Shinya Uekusa & Raven Cretney.- 7. Every last drop: The fresh water “disaster” in Canterbury. By Matthew Wynyard.- PART III: Critical voices in disasters.- 8. Hazardous times: Adversity, diversity and constructions of collectivity. By Rosemary Du Plessis.- 9. Māori community response and recovery following the Canterbury earthquake sequence. By Suzanne Phibbs, Christine Kenney & Tā Mark Solomon.- 10. Asian migrant worker experiences in Ōtautahi Christchurch. By Arlene Garces-Ozanne, Maria Makabenta-Ikeda & Shinya Uekusa.- 11. Minutes of shaking: Years of litigation. By Jeremy Finn & Elizabeth Toomey.- 12. Sustainability through adversity? The impacts of the earthquake on the greening of death. By Ruth McManus.- PART IV: Ōtautahi as a laboratory for the world: A prelude to the future.- 13. Why don’t we “build back better”? The complexities of reconstituting urban form . By Steve Matthewman & Hugh Byrd.- 14. Turn and face the strange: Reflections on creativity following the Canterbury earthquake sequence. By Trudi Cameron.- 15. Planning, governance and a city for the future?. By Eric Pawson.- 16. Lessons for democracy from a decade of disaster. By Bronwyn Hayward & Sam Johnson.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A stunningly comprehensive yet detailed volume that demonstrates the importance of critical disaster studies for understanding disaster vulnerability, recovery, and resilience. With a focus on Ōtautahi (Christchurch), chapters reflecting multidisciplinary perspectives paint a damning picture of neoliberal and top-down governance in the context of disasters and recovery, while giving voice to marginalized groups (Indigenous peoples, migrant workers) and arguing with rich examples for grass-roots, inclusive, participatory, and empowering recovery strategies. Essential reading for scholars, students, and practitioners, with implications far beyond the Ōtautahi case”. (–Kathleen Tierney, Professor Emerita of Sociology, Former Director of the Natural hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder, USA.)

“Ten years on, Uekusa, Matthewman, and Glavovic provide a timely edited book that critically examines the devastating Canterbury earthquake sequence of 2010-2011. By bringing an impressive and diverse range of scholars together, the book articulates the social, political, historical, environmental, and intersectional considerations to forward Ōtautahi Christchurch as a ‘laboratory for the world’ that informs disaster futures and a call to action”. (–Jay Marlowe, Associate Professor of Social Work, Co-director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies, University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.)

“These critical approaches enable a much deeper understanding of the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence as well as the different experiences, social and political responses and long-term impacts of waves of disasters in Christchurch. Due to the long chain of individual disasters (but also connected at the same time), the case of Christchurch is unique and particularly suitable as a research object of critical disaster studies to enable learning processes and help to identify best practices”. (–Daniel F. Lorenz, Research Associate, Disaster Research Unit (DRU), Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.)

“This is a rich resource for disaster researchers everywhere. At the same time, and more empathetically, it provides spaces for diverse voices and for stories untold. Too often, disasters are thought of as single extreme events manageable through technical solutions. The ‘living laboratory’ of Ōtautahi Christchurch reveals the more complex and extended journey of those who live through disaster. The critical disaster studies perspective, which underpins this book, offers not just an evidence base from a decade of disaster experience but also a potential springboard for social change”. (–Maureen Fordham, Professor of Gender and Disaster Resilience, Director of the IRDR Centre for Gender and Disaster, University College London, UK.)