S10E8 - The Philippines, Vietnam, and Engaged Ways of Knowing Disaster (00:34:04)
Episode overview
Episode 8 continues Season 10’s regional focus by turning to Southeast Asia, with a conversation centered on the Philippines and Vietnam. This episode brings together political sociology, disaster mental health, Buddhism, and grassroots practice to examine disasters as products of political systems, colonial legacies, and relational breakdowns—and to explore what engaged, justice-oriented alternatives might look like.
Hosts
Jason von Meding
Ksenia Chmutina
Guests
Jake Cadag — Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines; scholar of community participation, postcolonial disaster studies, and grassroots disaster risk reduction
Caroline Contillo — disaster researcher, resilience trainer, and disaster mental health practitioner; lead trainer with the New York Office of Mental Health
Key themes
Postcolonial and Indigenous ways of knowing disasters
Disaster, authoritarianism, and political repression
Activism, scholarship, and public sociology
Buddhism, interdependence, and socially engaged practice
Mutual aid, disaster mental health, and collective recovery
Disaster risk creation through development and infrastructure
Moving beyond reformism toward structural change
Core discussion highlights
Jake Cadag reflects on rediscovering Filipino-language scholarship and postcolonial social science, emphasizing reclamation rather than rejection of global knowledge.
Disaster is framed as inseparable from political economy, authoritarian governance, and long-standing systems of marginalization in the Philippines.
Jake discusses Walden Bello as a public sociologist whose work connects development, dictatorship, and disaster risk creation, and whose activism illustrates the risks scholars face under repressive regimes.
The conversation highlights how political persecution and “red-tagging” of NGOs and academics can depoliticize disaster risk reduction and weaken grassroots participation.
Caroline Contillo introduces Thích Nhất Hạnh as a thinker whose concept of interbeing challenges the idea of detached, objective disaster research.
Socially engaged Buddhism is discussed as a framework for witnessing suffering without withdrawal—and for allowing compassionate action to emerge from that witnessing.
Mutual aid and disaster mental health are explored through relational perspectives, including interpersonal neurobiology and community-based recovery.
The episode challenges “bounce back” versions of resilience, arguing instead for recovery that confronts structural violence, inequality, and capitalism.
Both guests emphasize that disasters reveal deeper systemic failures—and that meaningful recovery requires political engagement, not neutrality.
S10E7 - Japan, Radical Thought, and the Politics of Disaster (00:34:48)
Episode overview
Episode 7 continues Season 10’s regional focus with an in-depth conversation on Japan. Drawing on political theory, radical history, and long-term engagement with disaster-affected communities, the episode examines how Japanese intellectual traditions—often overlooked in disaster studies—help illuminate power, vulnerability, governance, and the social contracts that underpin disaster risk.
Hosts
Jason von Meding
Ksenia Chmutina
Guests
Chris Gomez — Professor at Kobe University; head of the Sabo Laboratory; scholar of sediment-related hazards, ethical disaster management, and interdisciplinary disaster research
Wes Cheek — Assistant Professor of Emergency Management, Massachusetts Maritime Academy; scholar of community, post-disaster reconstruction, and urban theory
Key themes
Japan as a site of rich but underexplored disaster thinking
Reading beyond disaster studies: political theory, history, anarchism, and Marxism
Social contracts, sovereignty, and disaster as rupture
Infrastructure, concrete, and the political economy of risk
Radical alternatives in Japanese history
Disaster, authoritarianism, and state violence
Hope, resistance, and refusal in dark times
Core discussion highlights
Chris Gomez reflects on returning to classic political theory, particularly Hobbes, to rethink disaster as a breaking point in the social contract between the state and communities.
The discussion situates Japan’s long reliance on concrete-heavy disaster infrastructure within broader histories of governance, economic stability, and political legitimacy.
Chris introduces Masao Akagi, often described as the “father of Sabo,” emphasizing how engineering practice, drawings, and material interventions function as forms of knowledge alongside academic texts.
The episode challenges narrow definitions of scholarship, arguing that disaster knowledge is produced through multiple modalities, not only words and citations.
Wes Cheek discusses Ōsugi Sakae as a key figure of Japan’s Taishō period, highlighting a moment when alternative political futures—anarchist, socialist, anti-authoritarian—were still possible.
The conversation explores how the Great Kantō Earthquake was used as cover for state violence, repression, and the targeting of leftists and ethnic Koreans.
Marxism is discussed as a crucial starting point for disaster scholarship, particularly for understanding vulnerability, power, and the non-natural origins of inequality.
Both guests reflect on contemporary Japan, including demographic decline, economic contraction, tourism, immigration, and the rise of nationalist and exclusionary politics.
Disasters are framed not only as physical events but as moments that expose deeper social fractures, discrimination, and political choices.
S10E6 - Latin America, the Caribbean, and Plural Worlds of Disaster Thinking (00:43:20)
Episode overview
Episode 6 marks a shift in Season 10 from thematic conversations to regional perspectives, focusing on Latin America (and the Caribbean) as rich sites of critical disaster thinking. The episode foregrounds intellectual traditions that challenge Eurocentric assumptions in disaster studies and emphasizes plurality, dialogue, and the politics of knowledge production.
Hosts
Jason von Meding
Ksenia Chmutina
Guests
Giovanni Gugg — cultural anthropologist and lecturer in urban anthropology, working on risk cultures, disaster response, and activism in vulnerable urban territories
Anna Süsina — Lecturer in Media and Creative Industries, Loughborough University; scholar of communication, social change, participatory media, and power asymmetries
Victor Marchezini — sociologist at the Brazilian Early Warning Center and professor at INPE; leading voice in the sociology of disasters in Brazil
Key themes
Latin American and Indigenous intellectual traditions in disaster studies
Reading beyond English-language and Eurocentric canons
Development, coloniality, and the production of vulnerability
Plural futures, pluriverses, and alternative ontologies
Dialogue, pedagogy, and critical hope
Translation, language, and epistemic justice
Activism, civic responsibility, and scholarship
Core discussion highlights
Guests reflect on their reading practices, emphasizing podcasts, oral traditions, hard-copy books, and texts emerging from social movements, Indigenous communities, and Latin American critical scholarship.
Victor Marchezini discusses the influence of Paulo Freire, highlighting dialogue, pedagogy, oppression in everyday life, and the importance of critical hope in teaching, research, and disaster practice.
Giovanni explores Arturo Escobar’s critique of development and his concept of the pluriverse, applying it to disaster risk and urbanization around Mount Vesuvius. Disaster planning is framed as a cultural and political process, not only a technical one.
Anna Süsina reflects on Indigenous thinking through Ailton Krenak, emphasizing relational worldviews, the human–non-human relationship, and the idea that the dominant relationship with Earth is itself a disaster.
The conversation challenges the asymmetry between “scientific” and Indigenous knowledge, arguing for equal legitimacy and meaningful translation rather than extraction or tokenism.
Translation is discussed as both a political challenge and a creative possibility—across languages, disciplines, generations, and even between humans and non-humans.
The guests collectively stress the dangers of time compression in disaster scholarship, where urgency crowds out long-term thinking, historical analysis, and ethical engagement.
S10E5 - Black Power, Black Scholarship, and Disaster Justice (00:38:36)
Episode overview
Episode 5 centers Black power and Black scholarship as foundational to understanding disasters, vulnerability, resistance, and justice. Through a wide-ranging conversation grounded in lived experience, political struggle, and long-term community engagement, the episode examines how Black intellectual traditions reshape how disasters are understood, studied, and responded to.
Hosts
Jason von Meding
Ksenia Chmutina
Guests
Danielle Rivera — Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, UC Berkeley; scholar of environmental and climate justice working with rural and unincorporated marginalized communities
Dewald van Niekerk — Professor at North-West University (South Africa); founder and editor-in-chief of Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies; leading scholar of disaster risk in Southern Africa
Key themes
Black scholarship as central—not peripheral—to disaster studies
Structural racism, historicity, and the “disaster before the disaster”
Community resistance, agency, and epistemologies of survival
Ubuntu, mutual support, and collective responsibility
Rejecting colorblind and event-focused disaster narratives
Long-term engagement versus extractive disaster research
Bridging scholarship, practice, and policy
Core discussion highlights
Danielle Rivera discusses Clyde Woods’ work on the Mississippi Delta, emphasizing the importance of deep, place-based scholarship that traces disasters through long histories of structural racism, political economy, and resistance.
Woods’ concept of “the disaster before the disaster” is explored as a way of understanding disasters as outcomes of deliberate abandonment and plantation logics rather than isolated failures or surprises.
The conversation challenges dominant disaster narratives that center elite losses while marginalizing the experiences of poorer and racialized communities.
Dewald van Niekerk reflects on his engagement with Black Consciousness thought and the work of Mamphela Ramphele, highlighting kindness, dignity, and community as starting points for resilience.
Ubuntu is discussed as a philosophy emphasizing interdependence, shared humanity, and collective problem-solving—offering important lessons for disaster risk reduction and recovery.
Both guests critique paternalistic and technocratic approaches to disaster management, arguing for community-led, non-extractive, and context-sensitive engagement.
The episode reflects on the evolution of disaster studies, calling for deeper interdisciplinarity, stronger links between theory and practice, and greater honesty about power, inequality, and history.
S10E4 - Anarchism, Mutual Aid, and Disaster Politics (00:38:54)
Episode overview
Episode 4 turns to anarchism as a lens for rethinking disasters, governance, and collective action. Through a rich conversation grounded in political theory, history, and pacifism, the episode explores how anarchist ideas—particularly mutual aid, nonviolence, and suspicion of centralized authority—offer critical insights into disaster risk, response, and recovery.
Hosts
Jason von Meding
Ksenia Chmutina
Guests
Ruth Kinna — professor of political theory and historian of ideas, specialist in anarchism, utopianism, and activism
Alex Christoyannopoulos — reader in Politics and International Relations, specialist in anarcho-pacifism, Tolstoy, and religious anarchism
Key themes
Anarchism as a political and ethical framework for disaster thinking
Mutual aid as solidarity, not service delivery
Violence, nonviolence, and the role of the state in producing harm
Bottom-up governance, trust, and community agency
Climate change, adaptation, and early anarchist thought
Appropriation of radical ideas by states and institutions
Resilience, care, and the politics of responsibility
Core discussion highlights
Ruth Kinna discusses Peter Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid and its relevance to disasters, emphasizing cooperation, interdependence, and locally rooted knowledge.
The conversation reframes disasters as moments that expose existing power relations, where mutual aid often outperforms slow or absent state responses—especially in marginalized communities.
Kropotkin’s early engagement with environmental change and food security is explored, highlighting his concern with climate, production, migration, and adaptation well before contemporary climate discourse.
Alex Christoyannopoulos reflects on Leo Tolstoy’s anarcho-pacifism, focusing on violence as a structural feature of the state and on moral responsibility, complicity, and refusal.
Nonviolence is discussed not only as a moral stance but as a practical foundation for community resilience, collective decision-making, and resistance.
Both guests critique the appropriation of concepts like mutual aid, care, and resilience by governments and institutions, arguing that such moves often strip these ideas of their political substance.
The episode challenges disaster scholars to take seriously activism, disobedience, and bottom-up organizing as central—rather than peripheral—to disaster risk and response.
S10E3 - Urbanism, Technology, Space, and the Invention of Catastrophe (00:50:22)
Episode overview
Episode 3 expands Season 10’s exploration of Contemplating Catastrophe with a wide-ranging conversation on urbanism, technology, space, and time. The episode brings together historical, geographical, and critical perspectives to examine how disasters are produced, anticipated, governed, and lived—often long before any so-called “event” occurs.
Hosts
Jason von Meding
Ksenia Chmutina
Guests
Zachary Loeb — historian of technology and disasters, Purdue University
Kevin Grove — professor of geography, Florida International University
Key themes
Technology, risk, and the invention of new forms of catastrophe
Urbanism and disaster as historically produced conditions
Reading beyond disaster studies: technology critique, political geography, Black studies, and Caribbean thought
Space, time, and temporality in disaster scholarship
Warnings, prediction, and why societies fail to listen
Power, knowledge, and whose experiences of space and time count
Interdisciplinarity as a core strength of disaster studies
Core discussion highlights
Zachary Loeb reflects on how critiques of technology—shaped by thinkers like Lewis Mumford and Paul Virilio—frame disasters as built into technological systems themselves, rather than accidental failures.
The idea that every technological invention also invents its own accident becomes a lens for understanding contemporary risks, including digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence.
Kevin Grove discusses how moments of discomfort and contradiction in fieldwork can become catalysts for deeper theoretical engagement, particularly through biopolitics, Caribbean studies, and Black geographies.
Edward Soja and Doreen Massey are explored as thinkers who radically reshaped how scholars understand space, difference, and the politics of knowledge production.
The episode challenges linear disaster timelines by introducing multiple, co-existing temporalities—slow disaster, repetition, duration, and suspended presents—especially as experienced by marginalized communities.
Space is framed as lively, relational, and unfinished, while time is shown to be unevenly distributed and historically produced through violence, colonialism, and capitalism.
S10E2 - Feminism, Listening, and Disaster Justice (00:43:13)
Episode overview
Episode 2 continues Season 10’s thematic journey with a focused conversation on feminism and disaster studies. The discussion explores how feminist thinking reshapes disaster scholarship and practice, challenges dominant canons, and opens space for listening, care, solidarity, and justice-oriented research.
Hosts
Jason von Meding
Ksenia Chmutina
Guests
Kaira Zoe Alburo-Cañete — Filipino feminist scholar, Senior Researcher at the Humanitarian Studies Centre (ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Susamma Seeley — crisis and disaster human services specialist; PhD candidate in Disaster Science and Management (University of Delaware)
Key themes
Feminism as a pathway for expanding disaster scholarship
Reading, curiosity, and discovery beyond disciplinary canons
Privilege, access, and barriers to knowledge production
Listening, hearing, and acting on marginalized voices
Feminist methodologies: reflexivity, positionality, care, and solidarity
Decolonial and postcolonial feminist perspectives
The personal, emotional, and everyday dimensions of disasters
Core discussion highlights
Guests reflect on their reading trajectories and how lived experience, storytelling, and curiosity shape feminist scholarship.
Feminism is discussed not as a single framework but as a diverse set of approaches that open space for multiple voices, emotions, and forms of knowledge.
Kaira Alburo-Cañete discusses bell hooks, emphasizing feminist standpoint epistemology, intersectionality, marginality as a site of resistance, and the role of love, care, and solidarity in disaster research.
Susamma Seeley discusses Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, focusing on subalternity, listening as a political act, and the challenge of creating spaces where marginalized voices can be heard and acted upon.
The conversation highlights reading as a collective, social practice—through discussion, listening (including audiobooks), and shared curiosity.
Participants reflect on how feminist and decolonial perspectives can inform more equitable research partnerships, especially across Global North–Global South contexts.
Episode overview
Season 10 opens with a live conversation setting the intellectual frame for a new series built around Contemplating Catastrophe, an edited collection of short essays engaging thinkers outside conventional disaster studies. The episode reflects on why reading beyond the field matters, how theory reshapes practice, and why eclectic, critical scholarship is essential for the future of disaster research.
Hosts
Jason von Meding
Ksenia Chmutina
Guests
A.J. Faas — anthropologist and disaster scholar
J.C. Gaillard — geographer and disaster researcher
Key themes
Why disaster studies must continually read beyond itself
Theory as a way to unsettle settled ideas, not as abstraction for its own sake
Eclecticism, curiosity, and “thinking with” rather than “thinking about” communities
The limits of normative frameworks (e.g., vulnerability, “no natural disasters”)
How critical theory informs practice, not just scholarship
The importance of non-Anglophone, non-Western, and untranslated bodies of thought
Creating intellectual space for early-career researchers to take theoretical risks
Core discussion highlights
Introduction to Contemplating Catastrophe, a collection of short essays on thinkers who shape disaster thinking indirectly—philosophers, artists, theorists, and writers outside the field.
A.J. Faas discusses reading across philosophy, literature, anthropology, and history to keep thought “lively,” and reflects on how Gramsci and Santiago Castro-Gómez help disaster scholars rethink power, hegemony, and relationality.
J.C. Gaillard reflects on frustration with disaster practice as a driver for engaging critical theory, particularly Foucault, and argues that theory liberates practice rather than distracting from it.
Shared concern that dominant concepts can silence alternative ontologies and lived realities if left unexamined.
A collective call to broaden disaster scholarship beyond Euro-American traditions and to value thinkers writing in other languages and contexts.
Season 10 structure
Live episodes recorded through 2025, archived on our Youtube channel!
Thematic episodes planned on feminism, urbanism, anarchism, Black power, Latin American and Caribbean thought, East and Southeast Asian intellectual traditions, and Eastern philosophies.
S9E7 - Sajag-Nepal (Part 3) (00:41:31)
Sajag-Nepal's "Notes from the Field" is a three-episode podcast for "Disasters: Deconstructed" This special episode will introduce listeners to the work and scope of the "Sajag-Nepal: Planning and Preparedness for the Mountain Hazard and Risk Chain in Nepal" project. Most importantly it will explore Sajag-Nepal project’s approaches to interdisciplinary and intercultural research on multi-hazards and risk chains in Nepal.
In our final episode (of 3) we will focus on Slope Monitoring Equipment, which aims to study slope movement. Additionally, we will engage in discussions with community members from Bhotekoshi to better understand their perspectives on slope movement. The goal of this episode is to facilitate a dialogue between scientific knowledge and community insights regarding slope movement.
We hope you enjoy the discussion!
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Hosts: Nyima Dorjee Bhotia, Dipak Basnet, Anuradha Puri & Tek Bahadur Dong
Speakers: Dr. Megh Raj Dhital, Dr. Nick Rosser, Dr. Mukta Lama, Ramesh Shrestha (PhD student at Geography Department, Durham University, UK) the participants from Marming workshop, Bhotekoshi, Sindhupalchowk
Translation of the Nepal folk song
The landslide occurs every year.
What is the government doing?
We are worried- where to go,
What to eat, what to wear.
Landslides bring sorrow.
While the government watches,
landslides have increased.
We are worried- where to go,
What to eat, what to wear.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the people of Marmin in Bhote Kosi Rural Municipality who kindly participated in our workshop and who gave their time to be interviewed for our project and the podcast. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.
We also acknowledge our colleagues at Social Science Baha for their time to give a voice over in the Nepali interview recording
Prasansa Thapa
Sujit Maharjan
Rajib Neupane
Sanjit Shrestha
Sachin Karki
Sakar Sapkota
Further Info:
Sajag-Nepal: Twitter, project website
Social Science Baha: Website, Twitter
Sajag-Nepal project film produced by BBC Media Action (Film on Phagam)
S9E6 - Sajag-Nepal (Part 2) (00:54:22)
Sajag-Nepal's "Notes from the Field" is a three-episode podcast for "Disasters: Deconstructed" This special episode will introduce listeners to the work and scope of the "Sajag-Nepal: Planning and Preparedness for the Mountain Hazard and Risk Chain in Nepal" project. Most importantly it will explore Sajag-Nepal project’s approaches to interdisciplinary and intercultural research on multi-hazards and risk chains in Nepal.
Welcome to Episode 2 (of 3), where we will explore the understanding of multi-hazards from the perspectives of both the local community and scientists. To do this, we will take the episode to Temal and engage in conversations with local community members to gain insights into their understanding of hazards/multi-hazards. Additionally, we will interview anthropologist Mukta Tamang, geographer Gopi Basyal and geologist Megh Dhital on the topic.
We hope you enjoy the discussion!
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Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Hosts:Tek Bahadur Dong, Anuradha Puri, Nyima Dorjee Bhotia, Dipak Basnet,
Speakers: Prof. Megh Raj Dhital, Dr. Gopi Krishna Basyal, and Dr. Mukta Singh Lama
Further Info:
Sajag-Nepal: Twitter, project website
Social Science Baha: Website, Twitter
Sajag-Nepal project film produced by BBC Media Action (Film on Phagam)
NSET: Website
S9E5 - Sajag-Nepal (Part 1) (00:32:34)
Sajag-Nepal's "Notes from the Field" is a three-episode podcast for "Disasters: Deconstructed" This special episode will introduce listeners to the work and scope of the "Sajag-Nepal: Planning and Preparedness for the Mountain Hazard and Risk Chain in Nepal" project. Most importantly it will explore Sajag-Nepal project’s approaches to interdisciplinary and intercultural research on multi-hazards and risk chains in Nepal.
In the first episode, we discuss cascading hazards in Nepal, with a focus on earthquakes and monsoon-triggered hazards like landslides. This episode will center around the project’s approaches to interdisciplinary and intercultural research.
We hope you enjoy the discussion!
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon
Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Hosts: Nyima Dorjee Bhotia, Dipak Basnet, Anuradha Puri & Tek Bahadur Dong
Speakers: Dr. Katie Oven, Dr. Amy Johnson, and Dr. Jeevan Baniya
Further Info:
Sajag-Nepal: Twitter, project website
Social Science Baha: Website, Twitter
Sajag-Nepal project film produced by BBC Media Action (Film on Phagam)
S9E4 - Fishlake (Part 3) (00:22:10)
Welcome to the final part of our Disasters: Deconstructed mini-series from Fishlake, UK! Thank you so much to Dave Angel for producing this wonderful local artifact, and sharing his creative process with us. I hope you all are inspired as much as we are!!
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Further information:
Dave Angel’s contact: d.angel@lboro.ac.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-angel-5444a6226/
Loughborough HOME CDT doctoral research project
https://meaningofhome.uk/
The Meaning of Home CDT Podcast: our monthly podcast on the subject of home
https://meaningofhome.uk/podcast/
S9E3 - Fishlake (Part 2) (00:24:21)
We are back with Dave Angel for the second episode of our Disasters: Deconstructed mini-series from Fishlake, UK. Thanks for joining us!
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Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Further information:
Dave Angel’s contact: d.angel@lboro.ac.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-angel-5444a6226/
Loughborough HOME CDT doctoral research project
https://meaningofhome.uk/
The Meaning of Home CDT Podcast: our monthly podcast on the subject of home
https://meaningofhome.uk/podcast/
S9E2 - Fishlake (Part 1) (00:26:36)
Welcome to the first episode of our Disasters: Deconstructed mini-series from Fishlake, UK. Your host for this series is Dave Angel, a musician-composer who has spent most of his life in the area. The series draws on his PhD work "‘Effing Awful!’: Deep, Dirty, Dangerous Water. Developing an audio representational method to develop empathy around post-flood experiences in two South Yorkshire villages." Over to Dave for the mini-series!
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon
Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Further information:
Dave Angel’s contact: d.angel@lboro.ac.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-angel-5444a6226/
Loughborough HOME CDT doctoral research project
https://meaningofhome.uk/
The Meaning of Home CDT Podcast: our monthly podcast on the subject of home
https://meaningofhome.uk/podcast/
S9E1 - Season Overview (00:26:45)
Happy New Year and welcome back for Season 9 of Disasters: Deconstructed!!! We can't wait to spend time with you again - or for the first time - as we explore why disasters really happen.
This season we will be exploring local stories through 3 mini-series from around the world. Tune in to hear more about what we have in store :)
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Music this week from "Thinking of You" by Oliver Michael.
S8E9 - Season Wrap (00:34:23)
We really appreciate you all tuning in for Season 8 of Disasters: Deconstructed! In this Season Wrap we look back at some of the best bits from our discussions and the key themes emerging. Join us again in a few months for Season 9 when we concentrate on local stories from communities living with risk around the world
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Music this week from "Continent" by AMBR.
S8E8 - Scholar Activism (00:31:23)
Thanks everyone for joining us this season! We have really enjoyed speaking with our incredible guests who taught us about solidarity from so many angles. This is our penultimate episode, and we are super excited to spend it with our season 4 co-host, Darien Alexander Williams!
Since he was last on the podcast, Darien completed his doctorate and is an incoming Assistant Prof. at Boston University. As many of you know, he is an urban planner who studies Blackness, Islam and disaster. Being an active part of community in Boston is a priority for him, and we are so glad he joined us to discuss the complicated space of scholar activism.
Thanks for listening!
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Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Further information:
Queer Muslims of Boston
Our guests:
Darien Alexander Williams (@nigreaux)
Music this week from "chimera soldiers" by Max H.
S8E7 - Solidarity through music (00:36:11)
Today we welcome indie singer/songwriter David Rovics to Disasters: Deconstructed! David has produced an incredible body of anti-capitalist and community-grounded work, emerging as a prominent social critic on issues that we care about on DD, militarism, globalisation, environmental crisis, consumerism and gentrification. In this episode we talk about how music can bring people together in struggle! Thanks for listening.
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Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Further information:
David's website
Our guests:
David Rovics (@drovics)
Music this week from "6 feet under" by John Isaac.
S8E6 - Vulnerability and Mutual Aid (00:41:11)
Welcome back to Disasters: Deconstructed! Today A.J. Faas is joining us to discuss his new book, In the Shadow of Tungurahua, and how some of its key themes link to our season on solidarity. We consider minga, deservingness, and vulnerability - thanks for joining us!
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Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Further information:
In the Shadow of Tungurahua: Disaster Politics in Highland Ecuador
Our guests:
A.J. Faas (@ajfaas)
Music this week from "Lioness" by Kevin Graham.
Special Episode: Turkey-Syria Earthquake Revisited (Arabic language) (00:54:46)
في هذه الحلقة نواصل مناقشتنا (بالعربية) حول الزلزال المدمر الذي ضرب تركيا وسوريا في فبراير 2023. نتحدث عن آخر الإحصائيات والتحديثات حول الكارثة ، ونناقش مواضيع مهمة مثل انتشار المعلومات كاذبة في أوقات الكوارث. بالإضافة إلى ذلك ، نشرح كيف يمكن للناس معرفة ما إذا كانت منازلهم مصممةضد مثل هذه المخاطر الطبيعية ، ونقدم المشورة للأشخاص الذين يرغبون في بناء أو شراء منازل جديدة في هذا الصدد.
In this episode, we continue our discussion (in Arabic) about the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria in February 2023. We talk about the latest statistics and updates on the disaster, and we discuss critical topics such as the spread of false information in times of disaster. Additionally, we explain how people can know if their houses are designed to survive such natural hazards, and we give advice to people who want to build or buy new houses in that regard.
عامر حمد عيسى أبو خلف مرشح دكتوراه و باحث مساعد في معهد فلوريدا لمرونة البيئة المبنية. عامر مهندس إنشائي ويبحث في إدارة المخاطر وتصميم السلامة مع التركيز على المخاطر الطبيعية ، والبيئة المبنية ، وإدارة الأزمات ، والتخطيط للطوارئ. عامر أيضًا مؤلف في أهم المجلات العلمية في هذا المجال ، بما في ذلك المجلة الدولية للحد من مخاطر الكوارث ، والوقاية من الكوارث وإدارتها ، والمخاطر الطبيعية
مجد برقاش مهندس مدني وطالب دراسات عليا في كلية الأمير حسين بن عبد الله الثاني للدراسات الدولية ، الجامعة الأردنية ، متخصص في حل النزاعات. مجد حاصل على شهادة معهد إدارة المشاريع ولديه أكثر من 12 عامًا من الخبرة في صناعة البناء. عمل مجد في العديد من مشاريع الطاقة النظيفة والنفط والغاز بين الشرق الأوسط وأمريكا الجنوبية
Amer Hamad Issa Abukhalaf is a Ph.D. candidate and research assistant at the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience. Amer is a structural engineer and he researches risk management and safety design with a focus on natural hazards, built environment, crisis management, and emergency planning. Amer is also a published author in top journals in the field, including the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Disaster Prevention and Management, and Natural Hazards.
Majd Bargash is a civil engineer and a grad student at Prince Hussein Bin Abdulla II College of International Studies, University of Jordan, majoring in Conflict Resolution. Majd is a Project Management Institute (PMI) Certified practitioner and has over 12 years of experience in the construction industry. Majd worked in several clean energy and oil and gas projects between the Middle East and South America
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon
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Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Our guests:
Amer Abukhalaf (@AbukhalafAmer)
Majd Bargash (@majdbargash89)
Music this week from "Falling Forward" by Kevin Graham.
S8E5 - Art for Solidarity (00:31:21)
Welcome back to Disasters: Deconstructed!
As we continue our exploration of solidarity in season 8, we are really happy to share this conversation we had with Dr Areum Jeong. Areum holds a PhD in Theater and Performance Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her training consists of a thorough grounding in the history of theater and performance, and her work takes a transnational approach to twentieth and twenty-first-century Asian and Asian American cinema, theater and performance. Areum is currently working on an upcoming book on the aftermath of the Sewol ferry disaster.
Listen in to this conversation about the Sewol Ferry Disaster and how the victims' families - particularly mothers - have organized and agitated politically using artistic expression.
Thanks to Dr. Jeong for spending time with us!
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Further information:
Beyond the Sewol: Performing acts of activism in South Korea
Representing the Unrepresentable in South Korean Activist Performances
Dr. Jeong webpage
Our guests:
Dr. Areum Jeong (@DrAreumJeong)
Music this week from "Stand Down" by Luminar.
S8E4 - Comrades (00:43:05)
Welcome back to Disasters: Deconstructed. We have a really special episode for you today, which we hope will highlight International Women's Day tomorrow, March 8th!
Joining us is Dr Charisse Burden-Stelly. Charrise is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University and a critical Black Studies scholar of political theory, political economy, intellectual history, and historical sociology. Charisse’s work focuses on the transnational entanglements of U.S. racial capitalism, anticommunism, and antiblack structural racism. Charisse is the co-author, with Dr. Gerald Horne, of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life in American History and the co-editor of the recent book Organise, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women’s political writings, with Jodi Dean.
Listen in as we discuss what it is to be a comrade, and how to push back on liberal notions that might equate it with allyship. We learn more about Black Communist Women in the U.S. and unpack tensions around political education and organizing.
Thanks to Dr. CBS for spending time with us!
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Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Further information:
Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women’s Political Writing
W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life in American History
Reproducing Domination: On the Caribbean Postcolonial State
Dr. CBS webpage
Our guests:
Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly (@blackleftaf)
Music this week from "Lioness" by Kevin Graham.
Special Episode: Turkey-Syria Earthquake Discussion (Arabic language) (00:45:13)
في هذه الحلقة ، ولأول مرة باللغة العربية ، نتحدث عن الزلزال المدمر الذي ضرب تركيا وسوريا يوم الاثنين 6 فبراير 2023 ، مخلفًا وراءه أكثر من 28000 حالة وفاة. نناقش تأثير الزلازل على البيئة المبنية في الشرق الأوسط ، وفي بلاد الشام على وجه الخصوص ، ونتحدث عن العوامل المختلفة التي تساهم في تحويل هذه الأخطار الطبيعية إلى كوارث واسعة النطاق
In this episode, and for the first time in Arabic, we talk about the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday, February the 6th, 2023, leaving behind more than 28,000 deaths. We discuss the impact of earthquakes on the built environment in the Middle East, and in the Levant particularly, and we talk about the different factors that contribute to turning such natural hazards into large-scale disasters.
عامر حمد عيسى أبو خلف مرشح دكتوراه و باحث مساعد في معهد فلوريدا لمرونة البيئة المبنية. عامر مهندس إنشائي ويبحث في إدارة المخاطر وتصميم السلامة مع التركيز على المخاطر الطبيعية ، والبيئة المبنية ، وإدارة الأزمات ، والتخطيط للطوارئ. عامر أيضًا مؤلف في أهم المجلات العلمية في هذا المجال ، بما في ذلك المجلة الدولية للحد من مخاطر الكوارث ، والوقاية من الكوارث وإدارتها ، والمخاطر الطبيعية
مجد برقاش مهندس مدني وطالب دراسات عليا في كلية الأمير حسين بن عبد الله الثاني للدراسات الدولية ، الجامعة الأردنية ، متخصص في حل النزاعات. مجد حاصل على شهادة معهد إدارة المشاريع ولديه أكثر من 12 عامًا من الخبرة في صناعة البناء. عمل مجد في العديد من مشاريع الطاقة النظيفة والنفط والغاز بين الشرق الأوسط وأمريكا الجنوبية
Amer Hamad Issa Abukhalaf is a Ph.D. candidate and research assistant at the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience. Amer is a structural engineer and he researches risk management and safety design with a focus on natural hazards, built environment, crisis management, and emergency planning. Amer is also a published author in top journals in the field, including the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Disaster Prevention and Management, and Natural Hazards.
Majd Bargash is a civil engineer and a grad student at Prince Hussein Bin Abdulla II College of International Studies, University of Jordan, majoring in Conflict Resolution. Majd is a Project Management Institute (PMI) Certified practitioner and has over 12 years of experience in the construction industry. Majd worked in several clean energy and oil and gas projects between the Middle East and South America.
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon
Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Our guests:
Amer Abukhalaf (@AbukhalafAmer)
Majd Bargash (@majdbargash89)
Music this week from "Falling Forward" by Kevin Graham.
S8E3 - Justice (00:41:51)
Thanks for joining us again as we explore solidarity!
Today we are joined by Kim Fortun, a Professor in the University of California Irvine’s Department of Anthropology. Her work focuses on environmental risk and disaster, and on experimental ethnographic methods and research design. You may know her from the Disaster-STS Research Network or as past-President of the Society for Social Studies of Science. Kim is also one of the editors of the new Journal of Disaster Studies that we have mentioned on Disasters: Deconstructed!
We hope you enjoy this discussion on justice, research methods and ethics, and how to collaborate better.
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Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Further information:
Disaster-STS Research Network
Advocacy After Bhopal Environmentalism, Disaster, New World Orders
Profile @ Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography
Kim's profile page
Our guests:
Kim Fortun (@kim_fortun)
Music this week from "Impavid" by Charlie Ryan.
S8E2 - Anarchism (00:45:05)
Today we continue our explorations under the theme of solidarity! We are so pleased to be in conversation with Dr. Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, who is a Reader in Politics and International Relations at Loughborough University. Alex’s research focuses on religious anarchism and increasingly anarcho-pacifism, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence, and he is the author of a recently published book ‘Tolstoy's Political Thought: Christian Anarcho-Pacifist Iconoclasm Then and Now’.
Hope you enjoy our discussion of anarchism, Tolstoy, and non-violence!
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Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!
Further information:
A pacifist critique of the red poppy
Alex's open access chapter summarising the book
Alex in The Conversation
Anarchist academics mailing list
Anarchist Studies Network
Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence
Our guests:
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos (@alex_christoy)
Music this week from "Still Holding On" by Tristan Barton.
