Critical Disaster Studies

This course focuses on an introduction to the sociological study of disasters and their impact on society. Disasters are triggered by both natural hazards (e.g., earthquakes, floods, wildfires) and human-induced hazards (e.g., oil spills, terrorism, nuclear accidents, COVID-19 pandemic) and cause widespread community disruption, displacement, economic loss, property/infrastructure damage, death and injury, and psychological suffering. There has been a significant increase in the frequency and magnitude of disasters, and the economic costs, damage to the built and natural environments, and human consequences have been increasingly severe. In this course, much of the focus will be on how social, political and economic conditions influence how people and communities experience, manage, prepare for, recover from and mitigate disasters. Through Critical Disaster Studies (CDS) perspectives, case studies of major disasters in Aotearoa New Zealand and the world (including the COVID-19 pandemic) are used to explore topics such as the impact of sex/gender, class, race/ethnicity, colonization, age and social capital on social vulnerability and resilience to disasters.