Our study explores how climate risk affects the tax behavior of governments and local firms, subsequently affecting corporate pollution emissions. Using data on Chinese non-state-owned industrial enterprises from 1998 to 2014, we empirically investigate the impact of natural disasters on corporate tax avoidance. The results indicate that companies in earthquake-damaged areas are less likely to avoid taxes than those in unaffected areas. Furthermore, companies that pay more taxes after a disaster can secure favorable government environmental policies, as indicated by (...) a rise in pollution emissions. Moreover, this effect is more pronounced for less polluting firms and firms with higher financial constraints. Our study contributes to the literature on taxation and ESG from the perspective of favor-exchange in government–firm relationships. (shrink)

Disasters change how we understand the world, and in doing so they can accelerate social movements that drive long-term change. This book uses social epistemology to chart how disaster experiences change us, how current systems harm us by shutting down that change, and how we can reform disaster practices to better adjust to our future crises.

This Open Access Book is the first to examine disasters from a multidisciplinary perspective. Justification of actions in the face of disasters requires recourse both to conceptual analysis and ethical traditions. Part 1 of the book contains chapters on how disasters are conceptualized in different academic disciplines relevant to disasters. Part 2 has chapters on how ethical issues that arise in relation to disasters can be addressed from a number of fundamental normative approaches in moral and political philosophy. This book (...) sets the stage for more focused normative debates given that no one book can be completely comprehensive. Providing analysis of core concepts, and with real-world relevance, this book should be of interest to disaster scholars and researchers, those working in ethics and political philosophy, as well as policy makers, humanitarian actors and intergovernmental organizations.. (shrink)

The ethics of social consequences is a means of satisficing non-utilitarian consequentialism that can be used to approach disaster issues. The primary values in the ethics of social consequences are humanity, human dignity and moral rights, and these are developed and realized to achieve positive social consequences. The secondary values found in the ethics of social consequences include justice, responsibility, moral duty and tolerance. Their role and purpose is given by their ability to help achieve and realize moral good. (...) Fair treatment within moral issues stems from applying primary as well as secondary values. The nature of these values cannot be determined exclusively in ordinary circumstances. However, in extraordinary circumstances (disasters), not all the requirements relating to the value structure of the ethics of social consequences need be considered in its entirety. In extraordinary circumstances, values are prioritised and realized. Primary values are realized prior to secondary ones. When prioritizing primary values, the realization of positive social consequences, or at least minimizing the negative social consequences, takes priority over other primary values. In disaster bioethics especially, it is often necessary to find a way to minimize the negative social consequences; thus, actions where positive social consequences are prevalent are preferred. (shrink)

Disaster Bioethics: Normative Issues When Nothing Is Normal, edited by Dónal P. O’Mathúna, Bert Gordijn, and Mike Clarke, is reviewed. This volume is the second in a series addressing public health ethics and is comprised of 13 chapters contributed by individual authors and divided into two sections. Although this is not a monumental work, it is one of importance. It asks more questions than it answers, which is fitting in an emerging discipline. It will serve to shape and focus (...) future research and debate. Not all contributions are of equal import, but each has something to contribute to the discussion. (shrink)

Pattern-based reasons are reasons for action deriving not from the features of our own actions, but from the features of the larger patterns of action in which we might be participating. These reasons might relate to the patterns of action that will actually be carried out, or they might relate to merely hypothetical patterns. In past work, I have argued that accepting merely hypothetical pattern-based reasons, together with a plausible account of how to weigh these reasons, can lead to disastrous (...) consequences. However, in this article, I argue that this problem is not limited to hypothetical pattern-based reasons: it turns out that there are analogous issues for reasons deriving from actual patterns. I then suggest that we can avoid this problem by adopting a different account of the weight of pattern-based reasons. (shrink)

This article explores disaster utopias in relation to two interconnected questions regarding utopian and prefigurative political projects. The first question concerns assessments of success and failure: Disaster utopias complicate assessment in these terms because they appear more effective at achieving immediate practical goals than existing systems, while this very effectiveness raises the spectre of a distinct kind of failure, in the form of co-option. The second question concerns the relationship of such projects to existing states: Fears of co-option (...) tend to treat the state's entrance onto the scene as simply neutralising utopian potential. While such fears are well-grounded, it is important to also consider how such encounters might change the state itself. Moreover, these two questions inform each other: the question of how the state (and ideas of it) might be transformed can also inform assessments of success or failure. (shrink)

Interest in the drivers of firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) is growing. However, little is known about the influence of a CEO’s childhood experience of natural disasters on CSR. Using archival data, we explore this relationship by offering three mechanisms that may account for how the CEO’s childhood experience of natural disaster is related to their CSR. More specifically, while prior research has established a positive relationship based on the post-traumatic growth theory, we show that the dual mechanisms of (...) prosocial values and a CEO’s risk aversion explain the positive relationship. We further find that the positive relationship is stronger (1) when CEOs have longer career horizons and (2) when community social capital is high. This study contributes to both research and managerial implications on the topics of CEO’s childhood experience and CSR. In particular, this study advances the upper echelon theory by revealing that a CEO’s childhood experience of natural disaster is a useful yet relatively underexplored variable that can help explain the substantial variations in firms’ CSR. Moreover, we emphasize that a CEO’s career horizons and level of community social capital are important variables that further amplify the effect of a CEO’s childhood experience of natural disaster on the firm’s CSR commitment. (shrink)

A philosophical memoir about becoming a father in an increasingly terrible world – can I hope the child growing in my partner's womb will have a good-enough life? For Kant, philosophy boiled down to three key questions: “What can I know?”, “What ought I do?”, and “What can I hope for?” In philosophy departments, that third question has largely been neglected at the expense of the first two – even though it is crucial for understanding why anyone might ask them (...) in the first place. In Infinitely Full of Hope, as he prepares to become a father for the first time, the philosopher Tom Whyman attempts to answer Kant’s third question, trying to make sense of it in the context of a world that increasingly seems like it is on the verge of collapse. Part memoir, part theory, and part reflection on fatherhood, Infinitely Full of Hope asks how we can cling to hope in a world marked by crisis and disaster. (shrink)

Nurses working or living near a community disaster have the opportunity to study health‐related consequences to disaster or disaster recovery. In such a situation, the researchers need to deal with the conceptual and methodological issues unique to postdisaster research and know what resources are available to guide them, even if they have no specialized training or previous experience in disaster research. The purpose of this article is to review issues and challenges associated with conducting postdisaster research (...) and encourage nurses to seek resources and seize opportunities to conduct research should the situation arise. Current disaster studies and the authors' personal experiences conducting maternal‐child research in post‐Katrina New Orleans (2005–2013) provide real‐life examples of how health professionals and nurses faced the challenges of doing postdisaster research. After catastrophic events, nurses need to step forward to conduct disaster research that informs and improves future disaster planning and healthcare responses. (shrink)

Globalization has amplified global vulnerability in that it calls for the sympathy, solidarity, and generosity of people worldwide. This has become clear in the increasing occurrence of disasters. Definitions and classifications of disasters differ.

In this contribution, we pose three questions. The first is whether anthropogenic climate change is producing natural disasters. The second is whether all human beings are responsible for this climate change—and, therefore, for natural disasters. The third is to what extent God bears responsibility for the natural disasters caused by climate change. To the first, we answer: yes, there is anthropogenic climate change causing the current natural disasters. To the second: no, not all human beings are responsible. To the third: (...) God is not responsible for natural disasters. We will attempt to justify these three answers. (shrink)

Migrant seasonal agricultural workers around the world constitute the backbone of labor-intensive agriculture while facing the most grim consequences of societal, economic and environmental changes from slow and rapid on-set hazards. Here we examine the impact of flash floods and the recent earthquake (February 2023) on seasonal agricultural migrant workers in Türkiye. Adopting the slow and silent violence approaches (Nixon, 2011; Watts, 2013), we explore the structural inequalities present before the disasters and analyse the intersecting vulnerabilities shaped by environmental, socio-economic, (...) and political factors during and after these events. We argue that the relatively invisible slow violence and more visible forms of violence overlap in the case of seasonal agricultural workers and migration status of the workers strongly influence their im/mobilization in disaster-affected areas. Immobilization in rural ghettos has facilitated the recovery of land and agricultural production as well as social reproduction in rural communities. This observation necessitates rethinking the role of worker im/mobility not only as a factor in production and social reproduction but also as a central component in disaster recovery. Therefore, we suggest a time-space nexus shaped by the analytical tools of violence and mobility to contribute to the literature on disasters and critical agrarian studies. (shrink)

Is drastic action against global warming essential to avoid impoverishing our descendants? Or does it mean robbing the poor to give to the rich? We do not yet know. Yet most of us can agree on the importance of minimising expected deprivation. Because of the vast number of future generations, if there is any significant risk of catastrophe, this implies drastic and expensive carbon abatement unless we discount the future. I argue that we should not discount. Instead, the rich countries (...) should stump up the funds to support abatement both for themselves and the poor states of the world. Yet to ask the present generation to assume all the costs of drastic mitigation.is unfair.Worse still, it is politically unrealistic.We can square the circle by shifting part of the burden to our descendants. Even if we divert investment from other parts of the economy or increase public debt, future people should be richer, so long as we avert catastrophe. If so, it is fair for them to assume much of the cost of abatement.What we must not do is to expose them to the threat of disaster by not doing enough. (shrink)

While the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 gave Japan the opportunity to reconsider the basic relationships between humans and nature, the scale of this disaster was not limited to Japan. It may be said that all of us live in “the age of co-disaster” in which we must realize that disasters are unavoidable. The earthquake brought forth a new agenda for environmental ethics, that is, disaster prevention. However, little research has been done in this area by (...) environmental ethicists, many of whom have focused on the conservation of nature. Disaster prevention may be introduced into environmental ethics by examining Japanese mythology, which can help us develop new ways of forming, maintaining, and restoring good relationships between humans and nature. (shrink)

Agrifood scholars have long called for changes to the dominant food system, with the goal of making food systems more sustainable and just. This paper focuses on the ways in which recent and future food system shocks provide an opportunity for sustainable transitions in the food system. However, this requires strategic engagement on the part of alternative agrifood initiatives—agrifood niches—otherwise food systems are likely to return to business as usual. Drawing on the multi-level perspective (MLP) within the sustainability transitions framework, (...) core themes that emerge from social science studies of disasters in agrifood systems are identified. These are summarized as resources, polices, and practices that can assist niches in transforming agrifood regimes in response to disasters. The results highlight that while niches are generally independent of governments, niches would be better positioned to engage in post disaster agrifood change if they have some pre-existing connections with local or regional governments. (shrink)

Disaster scholars have long complained that their field is theory light: they are much better at doing and saying than analyzing. The paucity of theory doubtless reflects an understandable focus on case studies and practical solutions. Yet this works against big picture thinking. Consequently, both our comprehension of social suffering and our ability to mitigate it are fragmented. Communitas is exemplary here. This refers to the improvisational acts of mutual help, collective feeling and utopian desires that emerge in the (...) wake of disasters. It has been observed for as long as there has been a sociology of disasters. Within the field, there have been numerous efforts to name and describe it. Yet there has been far less enthusiasm to theorize it, which means that the disaster literature has not adequately explained the social conditions under which communitas arises (or fails to). In this article, we synthesize numerous case studies to do so. This takes us beyond simple statements of what communitas is and what it should be called, to considerations of the conditions under which it emerges, how it should be conceptualized, the factors that might prevent communitas, and how we might encourage it. While primarily a theoretical work, the identification of communitas’ facilitators and barriers have practical import for disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy as communitas has frequently proven to be a positive and potent force. (shrink)

This study explores why and how firms respond to social demands through philanthropic giving in the context of a severe natural disaster. Drawing on Marquis and Qian's organizational response model to government signals, we integrate resource dependence theory and institutional theory to build a two-step model of organizational response to social needs, in situations of disaster relief. We argue that firms depending more on the government for support are more likely to donate in disaster relief, while firms (...) who receive more scrutiny from the government and the general public and firms having more slack resources are likely to donate more. Evidence from Chinese listed companies' donations to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake largely supports our predictions. This study provides a more precise understanding of the corporate philanthropic decision process, decoupling the drivers of philanthropic giving, and those determining the amount given. Theoretical and practical implications are suggested. (shrink)

Abstract: Longtermist Effective Altruists (EAs) aim to mitigate the risk of existential catastrophes. In this paper, I have three goals. First, I identify a catastrophic risk that EAs have completely ignored. I call it religious catastrophe: the threat that (as Christians and Muslims have warned for centuries) billions of people stand in danger of going to hell for all eternity. Second, I argue that, even by secular EA lights, religious catastrophe is at least as bad and at least as probable (...) and, therefore, at least as important as many of the standard EA catastrophic risks (e.g., catastrophic climate change, nuclear winter). Third, I present the following dilemma for secular EAs: either adopt religious catastrophe as an EA cause or ignore religious catastrophe but also ignore catastrophic risks whose mitigation has a similar or lower expected value (i.e., most or all of them). Business as usual—ignoring religious catastrophe while championing the typical EA causes—is not an option consistent with longtermist EA principles. (shrink)

This article seeks to make sense of the rise of global religious philanthropy in relation to disaster. Global religious philanthropy refers to the transnational activities of religious organizations to respond to humanitarian crisis. These organizations can be faith-based initiatives or religious groups or denominations that have created humanitarian services for the specific purpose of relief and recovery in other countries. The first part spells out what we mean by the rise of global religious philanthropy in disaster response. It (...) is not so much a shift as it is a rediscovery of the religious roots of humanitarian work. But at the same time, it is also a contemporary development that is part of the globalization of risk, humanitarian aid, and religion itself. The second part will explain the rise in two ways. First, faith-based and religious organizations hold what we describe as a global imaginary. In this imaginary, the world is in crisis and it offers an opportunity to demonstrate global compassion. Second, the rise of global religious philanthropy is also tied to the expansion of religious movements, some of which are in emerging economies. The expansion renders the religious field competitive. This is why, in a paradoxical manner, their humanitarian activities are also acts of strength and power that contend with the state and other players in the religious field. (shrink)

The practice of post-disaster memorialization in Indonesia constitutes a contentious practice in which narratives of loss, culpability, and resilience are actively negotiated. Through analysis of three sites; the state-sanctioned Aceh Tsunami Museum, the community-curated Sisa Hartaku, and the corporately contested Lapindo mudflow, this study demonstrates that memorials function as arenas of political contestation. Official monuments frequently aestheticize catastrophe to advance state-led narratives of national unity and resilience, often obscuring underlying vulnerabilities and issues of corporate accountability. In contrast, grassroots memorialization (...) operates as a form of resistance. These informal sites, shaped by personal and communal loss, commodify trauma not solely for economic purposes but to sustain collective memory, demand justice, and contest enforced oblivion. Memorialization in Indonesia thus represents an ongoing negotiation between hegemonic state power and community agency, positioning the act of remembrance as a significant political instrument for marginalized groups. (shrink)

The disaster ruins everything, all the while leaving everything intact. It does not touch anyone in particular; “I” am not threatened by it, but spared, left aside. It is in this way that I am threatened;. . . .The disaster is separate; that which is most separate.When the disaster comes upon us, it does not come. The disaster is its imminence, but since the future, as we conceive of it in the order of lived time, belongs (...) to the disaster, the disaster has always already withdrawn or dissuaded it; there is no future for the disaster, just as there is no time or space for its accomplishment. (Blanchot, WD, 1–2). (shrink)

The paper firstly uses the case study of the Bhopal gas disaster to understand why many scholars and activists seek alternatives to 'big' development. Secondly, it critically examines the claims that have been made in this regard in the literature in political ecology, science and technology studies and environmental governance, and in doing so, articulates a framework of questions for the next generation of research and advocacy.

Living with cancer: a state of perpetual emergency -- Notes -- References -- PART IV: Environmental aesthetics and resistance -- 12. The great turning -- 13. The underestimated power effects of the discourses and practices of the food justice movement -- Pessimist premise -- General system failure -- The transformative strength of the three Foucaults -- How practices and discourses of the food justice movement illustrate the three Foucaults -- The biopolitical disaster of industrial agriculture -- Via Campesina: peasant (...) knowledge, land and power -- Urban agriculture: eaters' resistance and practices for a new food system -- Slow Food: putting eaters' culture back into "agriculture" -- Conclusion: get your hands dirty! -- Acknowledgements -- References -- 14. Interrogating the neoliberal biopolitics of the sustainable development-resilience nexus -- The political genealogy of sustainable development -- From security to resilience -- The disastrous and politically debased subject of resilience -- Conclusion: development contra neoliberalism? -- References -- 15. The aesthetics of triage: Towards life beyond survival -- Mechanism of a triage -- Photographic triage -- The cinematic triage -- Beyond survival -- References -- 16. End piece: Dealing with disastrous life -- Extra/ordinary disasters -- Dread life -- Towards a new critical framework? -- References -- Index. (shrink)

Top priority of governments in containing the COVID-19 pandemic is “flattening the curve” which implies a slowing down of the virus’ spread across the entire population. The situation which European policymakers are facing at the moment is completely new and only few of them have the required experience to handle a disaster of such magnitude. What is important now is to avoid problems that repeatedly occurred in past disaster responses by learning the lessons and acting accordingly. This paper (...) reflects on European disaster management in containing the spread of COVID-19 and uncovers response inefficiencies that are still present. (shrink)

The problem of antimicrobial resistance is so dire that people are predicting that the era of antibiotics may be coming to an end, ushering in a ‘post-antibiotic’ era. A comprehensive policy response is therefore urgently needed. A part of this response will require framing the problem in such a way that adequately reflects its nature as well as encompassing an approach that has the best prospect of success. This paper considers framing the problem as a slowly emerging disaster, including (...) its potential benefits and difficulties, from a conceptual and policy perspective. (shrink)

The notions of at-risk and subthreshold conditions are increasingly discussed in psychiatry to describe mild, brief, or otherwise atypical syndromes that fail to meet the criteria for clinical relevance. However, the concept of vulnerability is still underexplored in philosophy of psychiatry. This article discusses psychiatric vulnerability to clarify some conceptual issues about the various factors contributing to vulnerability, the notions of risk and protection, and the idea that there are multiple ways of crossing the threshold to clinical relevance. My goal (...) is to lay the groundwork for a finer-grained discussion on psychiatric vulnerability that reflects the complex nature of mental conditions and illustrates the kind of thinking needed in clinical practice. (shrink)

Misinformation significantly challenges disaster risk management by increasing risks and complicating response efforts. This technical note introduces a methodology toolbox designed to help policy makers, decision makers, practitioners, and scientists systematically assess, prevent, and mitigate the risks and impacts of misinformation in disaster scenarios. The methodology consists of eight steps, each offering specific tools and strategies to help address misinformation effectively. The process begins with defining the communication context using PESTEL analysis and Berlo’s communication model to assess external (...) factors and information flow. It then focuses on identifying misinformation patterns through data collection and analysis using advanced AI methods. The impact of misinformation on risk perceptions is assessed through established theoretical frameworks, guiding the development of targeted strategies. The methodology includes practical measures for mitigating misinformation, such as implementing AI tools for prebunking and debunking false information. Evaluating the effectiveness of these measures is crucial, and continuous monitoring is recommended to adapt strategies in real-time. Ethical considerations are outlined to ensure compliance with international laws and data privacy regulations. The final step emphasizes managerial aspects, including clear communication and public education, to build trust and promote reliable information sources. This structured approach provides practical insights for enhancing disaster response and reducing the risks associated with misinformation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The centuries-old reality of human-human violence is a violence in which one human sees and treats another human as “the Other.” Antagonism toward strangers is a biological disposition. Human violence is furthermore apparent in the human decimation of non-human animals, hence of biodiversity, and the decimation of planet earth through deforestation and climate change. Wars of territory exacerbate the destructive pursuits of humans. Wars are the cultural elaboration of what is evolutionarily given, namely, male-male competition and the elevation of (...) “alpha males.” Human beneficence is a counter to human violence and is strikingly exemplified in a Palestinian doctor’s treating all humans as “human beings.” The second sapiens in the evolutionary categorization of humans as Homo sapiens sapiens specifies a more mature intelligence hence a being basically capable of self-knowledge as specified in Socrates’s observation “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” A being capable of “true wisdom” thus acknowledges its own strengths and weaknesses and the ever-present uncertainties of a future that lies ahead. (shrink)

The United States National Preparedness System has evolved significantly in the recent past. These changes have affected the system structures and goals for disaster response. At the same time, actors such as private businesses have become increasingly involved in disaster efforts. In this paper, we begin to fill the gap in the cross-sector literature regarding interactions that have systemic impacts by investigating how the simultaneous processes of systemic change and intensifying cross-sector interaction worked and interacted in the context (...) of the preparedness system. We examine these inter-linkages through a qualitative study in the setting of Hurricane Sandy. Drawing from systems theory, we develop a grounded model that provides an explanation for the system change and highlights how cross-sector interaction relates to the changes observed in the system. (shrink)

Major disasters are windows to societies’ deepest, darkest secrets. Moments, which allow us to sneak a peek at the categories according to which, we distribute wealth or justice and organize society as such. Law has come to play a vital role in this regard. In this chapter, I argue that (legal) conflicts after disaster are inevitable, as we have collectively changed our perception of what a disaster is. The modern disaster is anything but natural in its constitution; (...) it is a deeply political, moral and cultural phenomenon. Accordingly, it is also legal. Furthermore, three overall features characterize the legal cases that arise out of disasters. They all deal with serious losses, complex causalities and tricky normative distinctions. While the first two play to the strengths of the legal order, the third is what make these cases controversial. Thus, in the process of solving the legal facts presented, courts face a number of questions of a non-legal nature. In order to perform its main function (to solve the conflict at hand) law is forced to engage with the most central questions we are confronted with in an Anthropocene world: which processes are driven by natural forces and which by culture, who is a citizen, and what belongs to sphere of scientific uncertainty or misconduct? (shrink)

We are living in an “age of disasters” that is profoundly affecting societies and communities on a global scale. “Natural” disasters (earthquakes, floods, tsunamis), wars, migrations, famines, epidemics, environmental disasters, and economic crises are reshaping our world and causing significant disruptions in the daily lives of communities. These disasters have a serious impact, especially on vulnerable groups such as migrants/asylum seekers, women, and the disabled, exacerbating existing inequalities and reducing their resilience in the face of such crises. In this study, (...) it is argued that in order to create a society resilient to the disasters that occur in today’s societies, the conditions that will eliminate or reduce the vulnerability of social groups should be considered through the axis of the capability approach and the question of whether it is possible to reduce vulnerability by developing policies that will increase the capabilities of these groups. This study does not address vulnerable groups from an essentialist perspective; rather, it aims to examine how disasters hinder the ability of these groups to act and how pre-existing social and cultural conditions exacerbate the impact of disasters. The study begins with a conceptual discussion of the capability approach, then analyzes the conditions of vulnerability faced by persons with disabilities, migrants/asylum seekers, and women in disasters. Finally, by drawing attention to the concept of “collective capabilities,” it emphasizes the possibilities of the capability approach for guiding policies and developing recommendations for disaster management. (shrink)

Funding broadly connotes the notion of an institution and/or institutions making money and other resources available to individual researchers and organizations to accomplish specific projects. Whi...

Research on fairness in machine learning (ML) has been largely focusing on individual and group fairness. With the adoption of ML-based technologies as assistive technology in complex societal transformations or crisis situations on a global scale these existing definitions fail to account for algorithmic fairness transnationally. We propose to complement existing perspectives on algorithmic fairness with a notion of transnational algorithmic fairness and take first steps towards an analytical framework. We exemplify the relevance of a transnational fairness assessment in a (...) case study on a disaster response system using images from online social media. In the presented case, ML systems are used as a support tool in categorizing and classifying images from social media after a disaster event as an almost instantly available source of information for coordinating disaster response. We present an empirical analysis assessing the transnational fairness of the application’s outputs-based on national socio-demographic development indicators as potentially discriminatory attributes. In doing so, the paper combines interdisciplinary perspectives from data analytics, ML, digital media studies and media sociology in order to address fairness beyond the technical system. The case study investigated reflects an embedded perspective of peoples’ everyday media use and social media platforms as the producers of sociality and processing data-with relevance far beyond the case of algorithmic fairness in disaster scenarios. Especially in light of the concentration of artificial intelligence (AI) development in the Global North and a perceived hegemonic constellation, we argue that transnational fairness offers a perspective on global injustices in relation to AI development and application that has the potential to substantiate discussions by identifying gaps in data and technology. These analyses ultimately will enable researchers and policy makers to derive actionable insights that could alleviate existing problems with fair use of AI technology and mitigate risks associated with future developments. (shrink)

COVID-19 has been called “a disaster for feminism” for numerous reasons. In this short piece, we make sense of this claim, drawing on intersectional feminism to understand why an analysis that considers gender alone is inadequate to address both the risks and consequences of COVID-19.

_Disaster Psychiatry: Intervening When Nightmares Come True_ captures the state of disaster psychiatry in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This emergent psychiatric specialty, which is increasingly separated from trauma and grief psychiatry on one hand and military psychiatry on the other, provides psychotherapeutic assistance to victims during, and in the weeks and months following, major disasters. As such, disaster psychiatrists must operate in the widely varying locales in which natural and man-made disasters occur, (...) and they must establish their role among the chaotic array of organizations involved in direct disaster response. Editors Anand Pandya and Craig Katz have captured the challenge and promise of disaster psychiatry through first-person narratives. We hear from psychiatrists who have encountered disasters at various stages of their career and in widely varying social, political, and personal contexts. Accounts of psychiatric involvement with adults and children during and after 9/11 have understandable pride of place in this collection. But they are balanced by richly informative narratives about other domestic and international disasters. Fraught with the drama attendant to the events they describe, these essays delineate the dizzying array of challenges that confront the disaster psychiatrist. They range from the intense emotional responses that are part of the aftermath of any disaster, to the need to legitimize a psychiatric presence within diverse cultural and medical contexts, to the subtle task of providing therapeutic boundaries at a time when all rules seem to be suspended. Special attention is given to the daunting task of working with children whose parents' are disaster victims. What emerges from these testimonies is compelling documentation of skilled and compassionate psychiatrists at the outer limits of their specialty, pursuing their calling into uncharted realms of therapeutic engagement. (shrink)

The disaster ruins everything, all the while leaving everything intact. It does not touch anyone in particular; “I” am not threatened by it, but spared, left aside. It is in this way that I am threatened;....The disaster is separate; that which is most separate.When the disaster comes upon us, it does not come. The disaster is its imminence, but since the future, as we conceive of it in the order of lived time, belongs to the (...) class='Hi'>disaster, the disaster has always already withdrawn or dissuaded it; there is no future for the disaster, just as there is no time or space for its accomplishment. (Blanchot, WD, 1–2). (shrink)

Health Care professionals working in disaster situations have to face urgent choices which diverge from their normal deontological ethos and are more utilitarian. Such is the triage system used to choose whom to treat. Instead of entering a crisis these professionals should be thought that ethics is not harmonizable to all situations and that there are situations in which saving as many lives as possible mean sacrificing others. This calls for defining a perimeter zone in which such choices occur, (...) and a time frame (a space–time niche) in which it ought to be considered ethical and legitimate to use such value laden choices. (shrink)

If, following Timothy Clark, thinking ecology or nature with Blanchot entails the paradox of thinking the impossible, thinking it otherwise than simply surrendering to contradiction by way of abandonment of the question, then how might such a ‘thought’, per impossible, reflect itself in and to thinking? To better explore this paradox and its demand, this article proposes the distantiated manner of an echological thought which approaches nature, and the approach to nature, qua impossible, by means of its only ever exposing (...) an echo of an absence in the place of origin. This article argues that it is therefore only in tracing the echo-effect of ‘nature’ that one might begin to undertake the questioning of a relation between the writings and thought of Blanchot and ecological thought which would be more than (simply) negative. (shrink)

Derrida's Glas found one of its most attentive readers in Maurice Blanchot, whose fragmentary volume L'Ecriture du désastre responds in a number of ways to Derrida's book, in particular to its reading of Hegel. This article retraces the silent dialogue between Derrida and Blanchot as it unfolds in the two texts mentioned as well as in several others, including some of Blanchot's earlier essays and fiction, notably La Folie du jour and L'Arrêt de mort.

The present paper argues that the standardised treatment of disaster research and practice perpetuates the production of systematic epistemic injustices against victims of disasters. On the one hand, disaster victims are often prevented from contributing with their opinions and knowledge to the processes of disaster mitigation and disaster conceptualisation. On the other hand, disaster victims tend to lack the hermeneutical resources to make sense of their experiences intelligibly, due to the existence of significant hermeneutical gaps (...) in the hegemonic terminology on the matter. I argue that both forms of epistemic injustice, the testimonial and the hermeneutical, are sustained by an epistemic privilege between the Global North and the Global South in matters of disasters. The second group comprises what I categorise generally as ‘disaster victims’. I identify two forms of structural prejudice that operate against disaster victims: one is the ‘non-expert’ prejudice, and the other is the colonial prejudice. Finally, because of the intercultural nature of disaster environments, I discuss the field of ‘multicultural competencies’ as a useful form of unveiling and counteracting the epistemic injustices contained in both disaster theory and practice. (shrink)

The conduct of research in settings affected by disasters such as hurricanes, floods and earthquakes is challenging, particularly when infrastructures and resources were already limited pre-disaster. However, since post-disaster research is essential to the improvement of the humanitarian response, it is important that adequate research ethics oversight be available. We aim to answer the following questions: 1) what do research ethics committee members who have reviewed research protocols to be conducted following disasters in low- and middle-income countries perceive (...) as the key ethical concerns associated with disaster research?, and 2) in what ways do REC members understand these concerns to be distinct from those arising in research conducted in non-crisis situations? This qualitative study was developed using interpretative description methodology; 15 interviews were conducted with REC members. Four key ethical issues were identified as presenting distinctive considerations for disaster research to be implemented in LMICs, and were described by participants as familiar research ethics issues that were amplified in these contexts. First, REC members viewed disaster research as having strong social value due to its potential for improving disaster response, but also as requiring a higher level of justification compared to other research settings. Second, they identified vulnerability as an overarching concern for disaster research ethics, and a feature that required careful and critical appraisal when assessing protocols. They noted that research participants’ vulnerabilities frequently change in the aftermath of a disaster and often in unpredictable ways. Third, they identified concerns related to promoting and maintaining safety, confidentiality and data security in insecure or austere environments. Lastly, though REC members endorsed the need and usefulness of community engagement, they noted that there are significant challenges in a disaster setting over and above those typically encountered in global health research to achieve meaningful community engagement. Disaster research presents distinctive ethical considerations that require attention to ensure that participants are protected. As RECs review disaster research protocols, they should address these concerns and consider how justification, vulnerability, security and confidentially, and community engagement are shaped by the realities of conducting research in a disaster. (shrink)

In this article, disasters as a factual reality will be discussed within the framework of Allah's justice and human responsibility on the basis of husn-qubh. In this context, the ontic structure of man and the universe, man's being in the process of being tested, the definition of good-bad/goodness-evil that enables this process, the evaluations in the literature, and the meaning of taklīf within the scope of Allah's justice (‘adl) will be discussed. The problem of evil is the problem of reconciling (...) a God who is omniscient, omnipotent, and does good deeds with a universe in which evil exists. As a problem of evil, disaster is a phenomenon that must be addressed in relation to God, the universe, and human beings. While its relation with God in terms of creation appears as the legality of the universe, its relation with human beings in terms of dealing with the phenomenon and responsibility is within the scope of being subject to the offer. Therefore, a correct understanding of creation and justification of the reasonableness of the offer will answer many questions regarding disasters. The aforementioned issues and concepts in the theological literature have been discussed thoroughly (dakīk) in the schools of theology. Theologians defined God and divine action, human beings and human actions, and the universe in accordance with the paradigm of their discourse groups, and they made discussions based on the meaning they gave to these definitions and concepts. The basic determinants of the discussions are God's possession of knowledge, power, will, wisdom, and justice, and the creation of human beings in the nature of reason (‘akl). These concepts and definitions have been understood differently by the discourse groups, and the debates have moved back and forth between determination/compulsion and free will. It makes sense here that a person who experiences the phenomenon and wants to know what is happening theologically should know the Qur'anic conception of God and man. The relationship between God and man needs to be right and moral. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the topics that have been studied many times in terms of each concept together. In this respect, the article aims to seek answers to some questions about the human profile and the conception of Allah. There are three aspects to be questioned here: First, an ontological inquiry into the nature of the concepts of existence that contain moral value; second, an epistemological inquiry into whether moral value is determined by reason or revelation. In this context, the last inquiry is moral. Accordingly, what is good-bad and goodness-evil? What determines good and evil as a value? Who is the agent of the good-evil action? What is the position of the divine will if the perpetrator (fā‘ıl) is human? What is the relationship or boundary between divine will and human responsibility? What is the theological status of the perpetrator? On this basis, what is a disaster? What is the value judgment of disasters? What is the relation of disasters to God's actions? Who is the perpetrator of disasters? Are disasters a test? Are disasters a divine warning? Are disasters a divine punishment? If they are a divine punishment, what is the possibility of knowing it? These questions will be answered in the article, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly. (shrink)

Philosophical approaches to disaster response have tended to foreground classical Western moral theory and social contract frameworks, which have in turn shaped emergency management principles in practice. These frameworks have tended toward an agent-centered view of moral obligations in disasters which map disasters against the mythology of the state of nature and its associated justifications for the exercise of state power. In their focus on individual desert and the restoration of rights and property, established moral frameworks have failed to (...) attend to the inequitable impacts of disaster, particularly in the disparate and disproportionate ways that they impact women and communities of color. In this chapter, we draw on feminist philosophy and Black feminist organizing praxis in order to offer alternate frameworks for theorizing disasters and the duties of response. We develop an account of disaster rooted in the ethics of care, highlighting the ways that disasters are primarily crises of care. These crises of care are organized through privatized local and global care chains which distribute care toward the privileged, producing care drains that exacerbate the inequitable impact of disaster in ways that are rarely captured in established ethical frameworks for disaster. In search of alternate ethical frameworks, we explore resources within Black feminist organizing in order to develop an account of resistant care ethics, capable of reshaping priorities in disaster management and response. (shrink)

According to Brad Hooker's rule-consequentialism, as well as ordinary moral prohibitions against lying, stealing, killing, and harming others, the optimific code will include an over-riding “prevent disaster clause”. This paper explores two issues related to the disaster clause. The first issue is whether the disaster clause is vague—and whether this is a problem for rule-consequentialism. I argue that on Hooker's rule-consequentialism, there will be cases where it is indeterminate whether a given outcome counts as a disaster (...) such that it is permissible to infringe a given prohibition to avoid that outcome. I argue that it counts in favour of Hooker's rule-consequentialism that it makes this space for vagueness. The second issue is how to understand the disaster clause so that it does not make rule-consequentialism intolerably demanding—and more particularly whether avoiding over-demandingness requires the rule-consequentialist to place a counterintuitive limit on requirements to aid. I will argue that rule-consequentialism can avoid over-demandingness without placing a counterintuitive limit on requirements to aid. (shrink)

This book explores the current debates on global medical issues including national health care, experimental cancer drugs, quality of medicine and patient safety, preparation for a global flu pandemic, and regulating/outlawing cloning and germline genetic alterations. The book addresses national security issues concerning current national policies such as the best response to bioterrorism, force-feeding hunger strikers at Guantanamo, killing civilians in Afghanistan, with an emphasis on the roles played by physicians and lawyers in each.

The nineteenth century is often remembered as the age in which steamships and steam locomotives connected the globe with a speed and efficiency previously unseen. Although contemporaries frequently equated the use of these rapid-transportation technologies with the progress of civilization, their expansion also had some negative consequences. Among these was the more rapid and widespread diffusion of many diseases along transportation corridors as nonhuman stowaways on ships and trains. Most infamously, cholera extended its reach globally by appropriating and using modern (...) transportation routes in ways that were unintended and disastrous for their human creators. This article goes beyond the technological optimism of the time, and its now widely accepted pitfalls, and expands the scope of Anatolian provincial modernization to incorporate a complex web of interactions between human and nonhuman agents in the context of technological use and nonuse. It argues for a complex cocreation of modern conditions between these agents, rather than seeing these conditions as solely produced by human actions or environmental limits. Among the different human agents, interaction greatly increased between Ottomans and European states and their citizens. As the Ottoman Empire became increasingly integrated into global transportation and economic networks, it also experienced the spread of cholera. In the Anatolian interior, cholera epidemics spread along the railroad. I examine the 1893 cholera epidemic in Eskişehir, an important junction town on the Ottoman Anatolian Railroad, which had just begun operation the previous year. The railroad was widely celebrated for its intended uses: tremendously increasing the speed and transportable volume of cargo and enabling travel for military and nonmilitary purposes. The cholera epidemic, however, was enabled by the unwitting use of the railroad lines as conveyors of sickness and death. Furthermore, human attempts to stop cholera’s spread by interrupting train service undermined the technology’s intended uses but also demonstrated the availability and potential effectiveness of nonuse as an option. (shrink)