About RADIX — RADIX: Radical Interpretations of Disasters

A Reflection on the Creation of RADIX

‘Home of Radical Interpretations of Disaster and Radical Solutions’

20 Years on

Ben Wisner and Maureen Fordham

RADIX was created in 2001 as a “Home for Radical Interpretations of Disaster and Radical Solutions”. The word ‘radical’ meant unconventional at a time when disasters were often interpreted as identical with the natural hazards that triggered them or necessarily following or caused by those natural events. Also at that time conventional interpretations would often reference technical failures and psychological factors such as misperception and human error. By contrast, radical interpretations centred on the use and abuse of power as the root causes of disaster.

Origin in Moral Outrage

In 2001 Ben Wisner had visited San Salvador in El Salvador after an earthquake there[1] and Maureen Fordham had visited Gujarat, India also following a destructive earthquake centred near Bhuj. Ben found that despite warnings and objections by the government of a suburb of San Salvador, a road had been built high across a steep slope in order to provide access to the site for construction of high income housing. Following intense rain, the saturated slope below the road-cut collapsed in a classic lens-shaped landslide, burying middle and low income homes below. More than 1,000 were killed, more than 8,000 injured and nearly 150,000 homes were destroyed.[2] Maureen found that low-caste and low-income social groups had far fewer resources and opportunities during the immediate survival and recovery periods. One report of the impact of the earthquake Gujarat is cited nearly 4,500 dead, 69,000 injured and close to 230,000 homes destroyed.[3] However, this is most likely an under estimate.

The founders of RADIX were emotionally moved by first-hand narratives and their visits on the ground, but not surprised by these observations. Parallel findings had been accumulating over the past 30 years based on research in Bangladesh, Honduras, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mali and Senegal. A critical mass of experience seemed to suggest strong support for two generalizations:

No Disaster is Natural – The triggering event does not necessarily cause a disaster. There are human factors always also at play that influence who loses and, indeed, who might win during and after an extreme natural event.
Marginal People Suffer More – Across social classes and territorial space, people who are economically, politically, culturally and ethnically marginal to the dominant holders of economic and political power have less access to resources to prevent or buffer the impact of extreme events and fewer resources for recovery. Also, women may bear more of the burden of disaster and its aftermath.[4]

A key concept behind both these maxims is vulnerability. Although vulnerability has many aspects and meanings,[5] RADIX in 2001 was focused on lack of access to safe home and work sites, lack of access to finance to retrofit or to build safely, lack of income to maintain safe living conditions and savings for future contingencies. In short, economic power was a primary focus along with access to political decision-making, especially at the scale of local government but including down to the household level.

A Future Home?

If RADIX is to remain “The Home of Radical Interpretations of Disaster and Radical Solutions”, then after twenty years some home repairs and perhaps even remodelling is required. For a start, there needs to be a method devised to review and access the plethora of ‘solutions’ now available.[6] Which ones go beyond a quick fix or application of a band aid and actually change policy and practice?[7] Which ones assume the continuance of an indefinitely expanding market economy and which ones are compatible with a degrowth strategy? What forms of dependency or interdependency are likely created? Above all, ‘solutions’ are never politically or value neutral. How does one choose?

Secondly, with hindsight, RADIX in 2001 began with moral outrage. The founders were emotionally moved, shocked (but not intellectually surprised) by what they were told and saw in Gujarat and San Salvador. RADIX attempted to communicate that shock as a way of motivating students, researchers and practitioners who made up the majority of RADIX readers and who now make up the enlarged group of participants in RADIX list server debates. But over time, the assertion that “no disaster is natural” has been absorbed by mainstream institutions such as the UN and large NGOs. If allocation of budgets and actions follow this shift in language (a big ‘if’), then the change is welcome. Yet the question remains whether new generations of researchers, students and neophyte practitioners should be shocked? Should they be invited to experience moral outrage at the preventable loss of lives, livelihoods and homes that continues and, indeed, is increasing[8] despite decades of ‘risk reduction’ by one name or another?

References

[1] Wisner, B. “Risk and the neo-liberal state”, 2001 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11778579_Risk_and_the_Neoliberal_State_Why_Post-Mitch_Lessons_Didn%27t_Reduce_El_Salvador%27s_Earthquake_Losses.

[2] Reliefweb, 7 September 2001 https://reliefweb.int/report/el-salvador/el-salvador-earthquakes-final-fact-sheet-fiscal-year-fy-2001.

[3] Relief, 6 February 2001 https://reliefweb.int/report/india/india-earthquake-ocha-situation-report-no-7.

[4] Fordham, M. “The intersection of gender and social class in disaster”, 1999 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264332671_Fordham_Maureen_1999_The_intersection_of_gender_and_social_class_in_disaster_balancing_resilience_and_vulnerability_International_Journal_of_Mass_Emergencies_and_Disasters_Vol_17_No_1_pp_15-36.

[5] Wisner, B. Vulnerability, Oxford University Press on line, 2016 https://oxfordre.com/naturalhazardscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389407-e-25?mediaType=Article.

[6] Wisner, B. “Five years beyond Sendai”, 2021 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340544139_Five_Years_Beyond_Sendai-Can_We_Get_Beyond_Frameworks.

[7] Gender theorists distinguish between practical needs (short term interventions that do not affect underlying structural inequalities), and strategic interests which seek to disrupt the same. See: Virginie Le Masson, Andrew Norton and Emily Wilkinson, 2015 Gender and Resilience, BRACED Working Paper, ODI https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/9890.pdf.

[8] Ecological Threat Report, 2021 https://www.visionofhumanity.org/global-number-of-natural-disasters-increases-ten-times/ & “Weather-related disasters increase over past 50 years”, 2021 https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/weather-related-disasters-increase-over-past-50-years-causing-more-damage-fewer.