Disasters: Deconstructed Podcast

Today it's our great pleasure to release our latest AUDIENCE SPECIAL! We asked our audience, Is there anything wrong with framing disaster as “events”? Why/why not? Thank you all so much for thinking about this question, and we are glad that many of you got back to us!  Ksenia & Jason frame today's conversation around the responses received and we hope that this episode can be a conversation start...

This week Ksenia and guest co-host JC Gaillard are joined by Mx Roxanne Omega-Doron (Bisdak Pride in the Philippines), Bunda Mayora (Fajar Sikka in Indonesia), Neen Sapalo (University of the Philippines Diliman), and Adryan Sasongko (Resilience Development Initiative in Indonesia) to discuss the experiences of LGBTQI minorities and non-Western gender identities.    Follow us on Twitter, Instagram...

This week we are excited to share a conversation with returning guests Danielle Rivera and Emmanuel Raju about what recovery should look like, and what is regularly missing when we "Build Back Better".    Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!    Further information: Design in Planning: Reintegration...

This week...   Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!    Further information: links here....   Our guests: Chris Gomez   Music this week from "Kaitlyn" by Vic Davy. 

This week we revisit a question that comes up time and again, what is a disaster? Joining us is the wonderful Dr. Susanna Hoffman, an anthropologist who for decades has been at the forefront of social science investigating the “why” and “how” disasters occur. Join us for a wide-ranging discussion about framing, meaning, politics and language of disaster!    Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Face...

Welcome back for Season 5!!!  We are so glad to see you again - or for the first time - as we explore why disasters really happen.  Today we give some context to the new season, and then sit down with the amazing storyteller/engineer/professor David Prevatt to discuss disaster risk and colonized peoples, and how professionals can ethically be a part of community-centered social change.    Follow u...

Today we bring you the second part of the two-part series sharing local stories from young people about living through COVID-19! Today's episode sees participants reflect on the learnings we can take forward and their hopes for how society can change.  Thank you to the UN Major Group for Children and Youth and all the partners and supporters of the ‘Asia Pacific Researchers, Practitioners, Policy-...

Over the past few months, Disasters: Deconstructed has partnered with the UN Major Group for Children and Youth as part of the ‘Asia Pacific Researchers, Practitioners, Policy-Makers in Dialogue with Children and Youth Project.’ This is part one of a two-part series sharing local stories from young people about living through COVID-19. Thank you to everyone involved in this important research proj...

Thank you for joining us for Season 4! We appreciate you all spending time listening, and all of our amazing guests. In this episode Jason, Ksenia and Darien look back at some of our favorite bits from each episode, and look forward to what's next.    Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!    Music th...

Thank you to Professor Cheryl Potgieter for joining us for the penultimate episode of Season 4 to talk about gender and sexuality! Cheryl is a Research Professor at Durban University of Technology, and Head of Genderjustice,Health and Human Development. She was previously Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In this episode we discuss the importance of politically active scho...

This week we are delighted to discuss the importance of cultivating a community-centered ethos in our research and practice with Jake Rom D. Cadag. Jake is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography of the University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines and works across academia and NGO sectors in DRR and climate change adaptation. We talk about power dynamics in communities, and the impo...

Thanks so much to Barbara Carby for joining us this week! Barbara is Director of Disaster Risk Reduction Centre at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus and the former Director General of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management in Jamaica. We discuss DRR mainstreaming in the Caribbean and how states support each other and leverage their capacities in solidarity, as we...

This week we welcome Belen Desmaison, a lecturer and researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP). She is coordinator of the action-research project CASA (Ciudades Auto-Sostenibles Amazónicas) and researches resettlement processes, sustainable and resilient urban and architectural design, and the generation of socially and environmentally just habitats. So excited to share thi...

Join us this week for a discussion with DRR expert and #NoNaturalDisasters advocate Irasema Alcántara-Ayala, Professor of Natural Hazards and Risk at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. We discuss how risk is created within society and how state responses so often focus on reacting to hazards rather than addressing root causes. What does this mean for Latin America and the Caribbean? How...

This week Jason & Ksenia kick off the second half of the season (which will focus on the Global South) with a conversation about coloniality and disasters with Dr Danielle Rivera, Assistant Professor of Environmental Design at the University of Colorado Boulder and Director of the Just Environments Lab. Join us as we focus on the problems with "event-centric" narratives of disaster that do not ref...

Today we bring you a long-promised AUDIENCE SPECIAL on vulnerability! We asked you a while back, a) What does vulnerability mean to you? and b) Is vulnerability a useful concept? Does it allow us to frame places and people we wish to prioritise? Thank you all so much for thinking about these questions, and we are glad that many of you got back to us!  Ksenia, Jason & Darien framed today's conversa...

Today Darien wraps up his curated section of Season 4 and sits down with Benjamin Ruiz Rosado, Senior Training Manager in the Division of Violence Prevention at the Boston Public Health Commission. Benjamin is a public health social worker, an advocate for immigrants, a youth educator, and a firm believer in intersectional racial justice. Don't miss this incredibly rich conversation.    Follow us...

Today Darien and Ksenia are joined by Dr. Marccus Hendricks, an Environmental Planning professor at the University of Maryland and Director of the Stormwater Infrastructure Resilience & Justice (SIRJ) Lab.     Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!    Further information: Transforming Public Safety an...

This week Darien sits down with fellow Floridian Quincy Walters, a reporter at WBUR, Boston's NPR station. You are all going to appreciate this conversation on radio storytelling and how that plays out when the subject is disaster - they cover a lot of ground including the dynamic between editor and reporter, and reporter and researcher. What are the ethical considerations of arriving in the after...

Luis Gallegos, an Assistant Principal at Alliance Ouchi, a high school in Los Angeles, joins Darien on today's show! Luis is a public school educator and has served in schools throughout New England and Los Angeles, CA. As a queer, Latinx school leader, he works from a social justice lens with the goal of empowering students to dismantle systems of oppression. The conversation unpacks the inequita...

Today Darien catches up with R. Shawn Abrahams, a genderqueer black scientist practicing ascent with modification. They study phylogenomics, evolution, and super powers! This conversation about evolution, food politics, extinction and the Anthropocene is a wonderful demonstration of the fact that understanding risk involves appreciating the deep interrelationships of all life.    Follow us on Twit...

This week Darien sits down with Dr Fayola Jacobs, assistant professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. The conversation focuses on the black feminist lens that Dr Jacobs brings to the topics of disaster planning, environmental justice and urban planning.    Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts Subscri...

Welcome back for Season 4!!!  As always, thanks for joining us once more - or for the first time - as we explore why disasters really happen.  This season Jason and Ksenia are joined by a new co-host, Darien Alexander WIlliams! Today we give some context to the new season, discuss the key themes that emerged and reflect on why we have encouraged the conversation in certain directions.    Follow us...

Thank you all for joining us this year - We hope you enjoyed Seasons 2 and 3, which first aired in 2020, and learned as much as we did from our amazing guests!    Today we bring you our Christmas Special for 2020! Listen in for some festive antics, and weird and adorable facts and stories from around the world.    Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon Rate and Review on Appl...

Today we bring you a special live streamed episode that we recorded in September 2020 with several members of the Disaster Capitalism & COVID-19 Working Group, one of the COVID-19 Working Groups for Public Health and Social Sciences Research funded by the Natural Hazards Center, and some additional guests that brought perspectives from around the world on this issue. You can watch the livestream r...