Vol. 14, N°. 49, December 2012 – March 2013 http://www.dscrn.org/

VICE COORDINATOR’S REPORT

Nina Blom Andersenninablom@ruc.dk

Dear Members, Colleagues and Followers of the Disas-ter, Conflict and Social Crisis Research Network,

I am glad to be able to present to you this 49th DSCRNNewsletter, the first of 2013.

In this newsletter, you will be able to learn about the newmembers of our network, resources and events. I hope itwill suit your interests.

Going through the newsletter and being in contact withcolleagues who hold an interest in the work of DSCRNalways reminds me about the interdisciplinary charac-ter of the network and the importance of bringing to-gether people from different faculties trained in a varietyof ways.

We are not only able to learn about the interdisplinarityof the field when going through articles, newsletters andthe like; conferences provide a good opportunity for thisas well. And so it is great to read about the rich callfor conferences able to sue the interests of many of ourmembers in this issue of the newsletter.

In DSCRN, we are busy, as well, with organizingthe biannual European Sociological Association (ESA)2013 Conference in Turin this August.

Back in February we had the deadline for submitting ab-stracts for the ESA conference and the network receiveda great number of proposals. We are glad that so manycolleagues have found an interest in the sessions that wehave offered. ESA has now given us the possibility ofaccepting almost 80 abstracts.

A semi plenary and two joint sessions have been ar-ranged together with other research networks, which re-flects that we share research interests with other net-works and that there is a need of seeking insight fromother spheres in order to shed light on our interests.

I am looking forward to four days of presentations cover-ing research on disasters, social crises and conflict froma variety of perspectives, learning about how this subjectcan be approached in many different ways. Presentersare coming not only from all over Europe but also fromother parts of the world. The abstracts show that we willget valuable insights from around the globe.

To DSCRN, it is as important to meet colleagues withwhom we are familiar and know from previous confer-ences as it is to welcome new members and colleaguesand make them feel at home in the network. A strongnetwork is built when new attendants are brought in andparticipate in the development of the network in order tokeep it alive.

At the moment, the local ESA committee in Turin isworking in order to notify presenters of the status of theirabstracts and when the registration for the conference isopen. In the months to come, we are doing the finalscheduling of the sessions, so as for now the programmeis still not made public. When the final programme is an-nounced in June, we will post it on http://www.dscrn.org.

Hope to see many of you to conferences around theworld as well as for the ESA conference in August.

Nina Blom AndersenDSCRN Vice Coordinator

Contents of this issue

VICE COORDINATOR’S REPORT . . . . . . . . . . 1

EDITOR’S NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

DSCRN WEB MANAGER NOTE . . . . . . . . . . 2

DSCRN MEMBERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

RESOURCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

RESEARCH CONCEPT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

WRITER’S CORNER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

ANNOUNCEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

UPCOMING EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

THE DSCRN ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER . . . . 14

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Antti Silvastdscrn.news@gmail.com

Dear Members and Colleagues of the DSCRN,

Welcome to the April edition of the DSCRN Newsletter,which covers the period December 2012 – March 2013.

In this issue, you will find announcements about varioustopics in our fields: including conference calls, new re-search projects, completed dissertations, PhD positions,published studies, and research concepts. Murat Bal-amir, the coordinator of our network, is currently en-gaged in the decision of the United Nations SasakawaAward for Disaster Reduction. Given to individuals orinstitutions that have excelled in disaster risk reduction,the theme of this year’s award is Acting As One desig-nating that “disaster risk reduction is everybody’s busi-ness”. More information is available on page 10. Inthis issue’s writer’s corner, furthermore, Elizabeth Mc-Naughton considers leadership in the post-disaster re-covery process. Her essay concludes with ten insightsfor our consideration.

I want to wish a pleasant reading. Yours,

Antti Silvast

DSCRN WEB MANAGER NOTE

Antti Silvast (dscrn.website@gmail.com)

New members

Please join me in welcoming the following new DSCRNmembers:

1. Klas Backholm, Postdoctoral Researcher in De-velopmental Psychology, Department of Social Sci-ences, Åbo Akademi University, Finland, has inter-ests in psychotraumatology in general, psychologi-cal stress reactions in occupational groups workingwith crises and the role of the media in crises.

2. Seumas Bates, PhD Student in anthropology in theUniversity of Glasgow, UK, has interests in thelived experience of Hurricane Katrina and the BPoil spill and its effect on a southern Louisianancommunity called Plaquemines Parish.

3. Utkarsh Pandey, Unit Head in The Centre forCommunity Economics and Development Consul-tants Society (CECOEDECON), India, has interestsin financial and social aspects of Disaster.

As of April 2013, the DSCRN has 223 members ofwho 29 are paying ESA members. The up-to-datelist of all members is available at http://www.dscrn.org/membership/members.

DSCRN MEMBERS

Introductions

Utkarsh Pandey (pandeyutkarsh@live.com)

WORK EXPERIENCE

Feb 2012 - till date: The Centre for CommunityEconomics and Development Consultants Society (CE-COEDECON), Jaipur, India, Unit Head – Livelihood Se-curity, Disaster Management Specialist.

Research and analysis work on policies andlegislations concerning Livelihood Security.

Establish linkages with resource agencies, re-source persons, coalition networks and gov-ernment departments concerned.

Provide technical support and services in im-plementation of sustainable development.

2 months (trainee): Disaster Management Institute,Bhopal, India.

Industrial inspection (safety).

Preparing on-sight emergency plan.

Preparing off-sight emergency plan.

Preparing training module for armed forces.

Preparing training module for trainers.

2 months (trainee): Maral Overseas (BSL Group).

Export process.

Export documentation.

15 days (trainee): District Collectorate, Goa, India.

Disaster Management Plan

Project planning

Procurement

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EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

2011: MBA (Disaster Management) from In-stitute of Management Studies, Devi AhilyaUniversity, Indore, India (Aggregate 7.7GGPA).

2009: BBA (Foreign Trade) from Prestige In-stitute Of Management and Research, DeviAhilya University, Indore, India.

2012: PG Diploma in Sustainable Rural De-velopment from National Institute Of RuralDevelopment, Hyderabad, India.

TRAINING PROGRAMS ATTENDED

Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, In-dia: Regeneration and Enhancement of Liveli-hood in Post Disaster Situation.

Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, In-dia: Conflict Transformation and Peace Build-ing in Disaster Management.

PAPER PRESENTED, THESES

Economic conditions and risk taking psyche:An analysis of state of mind (Paper Publishedin IJoART Volume 2, Issue 3, March 2013 Edi-tion, ISSN 2278-7763).

Disaster management and mental strength(2012), Indian Science Congress, Odisha.

Climate change and rural business develop-ment (2010), HIM, Agra.

Master’s thesis: Financing for Disasters(2010), IMS-DAVV, Indore.

Bachelor’s thesis: Facilities provided andproblems faced by exporters in Pithampur-SEZ (2008), PIMR, Indore.

Announcements

Kailash Gupta defended Ph.D. dissertation

Kailash Gupta, a member ofDSCRN, defended his disser-tation on March 20, 2013, atthe College of Information,University of North Texas,Denton, USA. The title ofhis dissertation was SeekingInformation After the 2010Haiti Earthquake: A CaseStudy in Mass-fatality Man-agement. The dissertation ab-stract reads:

The 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which killed an estimated316,000 people, offered many lessons in mass-fatalitymanagement (MFM). The dissertation defined MFM inseeking information and in recovery, preservation, iden-tification and disposition of human remains. Specifi-cally, it examined how mass fatalities were managed inHaiti, how affected individuals sought information aboutfatalities, and what needs motivated them. Data from 28in-depth, partially structured interviews, conducted dur-ing two field visits ending 21 weeks after the earthquake,were included in a case study.

The data analysis revealed the MFM was severely inad-equate. One interviewee, a senior UN official, stated,“There was no fatality management.” The analysis alsoindicated a need to learn whereabouts of the deceasedmotivated individuals to visit spots the deceased werelast seen at. It sought to illumine information-seekingpractices, as discussed in the works of J. David Johnsonand others, by developing a new model of informationflow in MFM.

In addition, the research reaffirmed Donald Case’s andThomas Wilson’s theoretical proposition – that needguides any seeking of information – in the case of Haiti.Finally, it produced recommendations regarding futuredirections in MFM for emergency managers and infor-mation scientists, including possible use of unidentifiedbody parts in organ transplants. Overall, the dissertation,which was supported by two grants of the National Sci-ence Foundation, attempted to add to relatively scantyliterature in information seeking in MFM.

Kailash Gupta (kailashgupta@my.unt.edu)

In Memoriam

We are saddened to hear that Elif Daldeniz from the De-partment of the Translation Studies, Okan University, Is-tanbul, Turkey, has passed away in September 2012. The

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DSCRN wishes to express its condolences to her family,friends and colleagues.

Elif Daldeniz attended the European Sociological Asso-ciation Conference in 2011 Geneva in the DSCRN ses-sions with a presentation entitled “Transfer of conceptsof the new international policy for disaster risk reduc-tion: the case of Turkey”. The paper was presented inSession III. Impacts and Implications of the New Inter-national Policy for Disaster Risk Reduction, which waschaired by Murat Balamir. An article based on this paperhas now been published in the journal Natural Hazards(see Resources section below on p. 5).

Nihal Ekin Erkan, the co-presenter and the co-authorof the paper, has kindly forwarded us the follow-ing obituary which was written by Özlem Berk Al-bachten and published in 2012 in the Istanbul Univer-sity Journal of Translation Studies, Vol 2/4. The orig-inal text was also accompanied by an extensive bib-liography and documentation of Elif Daldeniz’s pro-fessional concerns. To find the full article, pleasefollow this link: http://www.journals.istanbul.edu.tr/tr/index.php/ceviri/article/download/19623/18640

In Memoriam: Elif Daldeniz Baysan (1970-2012)

By Özlem Berk Albachten1

On the morning of September 15, we learned of the deathof Elif Daldeniz with a feeling of deep anguish. Al-though we knew that she was fighting cancer for nearlytwo years, accepting it as part of her life, she was fight-ing this battle with such optimism – or so it seemed to us– that we were almost sure that she would win. In a mes-sage she wrote to me she said, “Life, in fact, is always aconstant battle. It is only that one feels it more in her skingoing through a health problem”. She conducted thisbattle of life with a smiling face and constantly working,thinking, and producing. Elif was not only a prodigiousresearcher, translator, and educator. She was also an im-mensely graceful, thoughtful, and good hearted friendand colleague. Elif Daldeniz was an Assistant Professorat the Department of Translation Studies at Okan Uni-versity.

Elif Daldeniz was born in Germany; her childhood wasspent between Germany and Turkey, between two lan-guages and two cultures. From a very early age on, shewas able to establish direct bonds with issues such aslanguage acquisition, multilingualism, identity, intercul-tural communication and translation. In her essay pub-lished in Çeviribilim journal2 after her death, she stated

1Doç. Dr., Bogaziçi Üniversitesi, Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi, Çeviri-bilim Bölümü.

2Elif Daldeniz, “Gel-Gitler Çocuklugu: Hangi Ülke, Hangi Dil?”21 October 2012, http://ceviribilim.com/?p=6133.

“those fluxes” that she experienced between two lan-guages and two countries “– despite some losses – haveturned into a benefit.” And perhaps this was the reasonwhy she chose a career requiring her to navigate be-tween languages. After receiving her undergraduate de-gree in Translation Studies at Bogaziçi University, shereceived her master’s and doctoral degrees in the De-partment of German Language and Literature at IstanbulUniversity. For almost ten years following her gradua-tion from Bogaziçi University, she worked in the fieldof industrial property protection first as a translator andthen as a trademark and patent agent. She was one of thefirst professionals to gain these titles successfully pass-ing two exams given by the Turkish Patent Institute in1996 for trademark and patent agency. She, afterwards,wrote her doctoral thesis on the same subject by the ti-tle: “Language and Translation in Intercultural Transfer:The Formation of Turkish Patent Specifications as a TextType”.

In the short period after she completed her doctoral stud-ies, Elif Daldeniz wrote a sizeable number of articles,presented papers at academic conferences and played anactive role in the activities regarding her profession. Eliffocused her studies particularly on intercultural commu-nication, translator’s identity, translation of philosophi-cal and cultural texts and translation of concepts.

She contemplated on the impact of translated texts onTurkish culture and thought, with respect to the historic-ity of translation as a concept, addressing the cultural andideological aspects of this phenomenon. Translation ofconcepts was a topic she was working on especially inrecent years. In this framework, she examined the trans-fer and translation of the concept of culture in Ottomanand modern Turkish thinking and discussed its role in thebuilding of Turkish national identity.

Since 2011, she was working on a TUBITAK project(The Scientific and Technological Research Council ofTurkey) on the history and conceptual map of Turkishurban studies, with Nihal Ekin Erkan, focusing on thedevelopment and transformation of key concepts of ur-ban studies in Turkey. This interdisciplinary project fol-lowed the traces of the concepts in Turkish urban history.Various papers and articles that she produced within thisproject have special importance in her research. In thiscontext, her papers examining the role of local govern-ments in disaster management and international policiesin disaster risk mitigation, the impact of developmentplans on cultural policies within the framework of theconcepts of “culture” and “design” in the developmentplans, and finally her presentation that traced the con-cept of “gecekondu” (shanty/ slum housing) in Turkeyquestioning the translations of this concept from the lo-cal “into the language of the international” at the 4th

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IATIS Conference in Belfast in late July 2012, which Iwas able to listen to, were among the pioneering studieson the translation of concepts in Turkey.

Elif Daldeniz contributed to the advancement of Trans-lation Studies as a discipline in Turkey and to the devel-opment of the profession of translating through both herstudies and endeavors in various associations. She wasamong the founding members of the Translation Asso-ciation in Turkey and served as the Secretary Generalof the Association in its first period (2009-2011). Elifwas also a member of ÇEVBIR, Translators Society, andARÇ, a volunteer organization launched for the purposeof rendering interpreting services to foreign SAR teamsand other relief organizations in disaster situations.

In Erkal Ünal’s words, Elif Daldeniz was among the fewpeople in Turkey who “was listening, sharing, givinghope and leading the way with her presence and voice”in the development of Translation Studies as a disciplinein Turkey. She will be greatly missed by her family,friends, and students. Those who have not had the op-portunity to meet her personally might find her work andcontributions to the discipline of Translation Studies inthe list published in http://www.journals.istanbul.edu.tr/tr/index.php/ceviri/article/download/19623/18640.

RESOURCES

Books, articles, reports, and recent studies by DSCRNmembers and colleagues. Book prices reflect prices atthe time of survey. The DSCRN cannot guarantee theprices informed. Prices are as stated in US dollars, Eurosor UK pounds.

Daldeniz, Elif & Erkan, Nihal Ekin (2013).Transferring the international DRR policy intothe local context. Natural Hazards, Vol. 22, No.2.

The disaster experiences of the past resulted in the needfor a new international policy. The paper examines thetransfer of the international policy for disaster risk re-duction (DRR) into a local context, Turkey and Turk-ish, where new and old perspectives meet. Analyzed isa corpus consisting of two texts, with the purpose of ex-amining the concepts’ actual use and contexts shaped bydifferent attitudes, based on the threedimensional frame-work of critical discourse analysis, translation studiesand conceptual history. The concept transfer from in-ternational to the local level inevitably involves transla-tion. The texts included ‘‘new’’ DRR terms as a resultof the concealed translation attempts to adjust the oldand contemporary terminologies. Thus, non-functionalterms with blurred meanings arose. The awareness that

such processes of transfer are complex would help toovercome this kind of simplistic top-down approachesand to give priority to ‘‘communicative labor.’’ Theframework is not presented due to space limitations. Itwas also observed that the Turkish terminology lacksclear definitions. To affirm this, an indepth analysis isneeded. Terms transferred across contexts may end lack-ing conceptualizations due to non-functional translationchoices. When adopting new social policies, this canbe overcome through making effort for communication.This research looks at conceptual struggles related to so-cial issues from a different aspect. The vague terms andinefficiencies in social implementations can be avoidedby authorities being aware that discourse, translation andtheir production are parts of social action.

Keywords: Disaster risk reduction, Transfer of con-cepts, Translation studies, Urban studies, Critical dis-course analysis, Transfer of international policies.

Nihal Ekin Erkan (nekin@marmara.edu.tr)

Project Announcement: Disasters and Migra-tion: Comparing Lakshadweep and The Mal-dives (2012-2015)

By Ilan Kelman1 (http://www.ilankelman.org/contact.html)& Himani Upadhyay2

Islands experience plenty of migration: in, out, and cir-cular. From the perspective of islanders, there is even anaphorism indicating how islandness stays with the peo-ple who leave islands: "You can take the child out of theisland, but you cannot take the island out of the child".

Many reasons contribute to islander migration. Fam-ily ties and a better life are amongst the most popularcited. Disasters influence these decisions, often leadingto forced migration. That can be from volcanoes erupt-ing suddenly such as on Heimaey, Iceland in 1973 orfrom the aftermath of a powerful cyclone such as Hetahitting Niue in 2004. Debates now ensue about migra-tion from low-lying islands due to climate change. Infact, climate change can dominate island migration dis-cussions even where there is limited empirical evidenceto show that climate change is influencing islander mo-bility.

To fill in this data gap, we have been awarded a grantfrom the Norwegian Research Council from 1 October2012 to 30 September 2015. We will interview people onthe Maldives and on Lakshadweep, India, to determinetheir interests and reasons for migrating from their is-lands. Other project partners are UNEP/GRID-Arendal,

1Center for International Climate and Environmental Research –Oslo (CICERO).

2The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi, India.

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Figure 1: Some of the Perceptions and Understandingsof Climate Change and Migration project team members,meeting in Oslo, Norway, in October 2012.

the Ministry of Environment and Energy in the Maldives,the Centre for Earth Research and Environment Manage-ment (CEREM) in Kerala, India, and the Universities ofManchester and Reading in England. This project linksto the Many Strong Voices programme which brings to-gether the peoples of the Arctic and Small Island Devel-oping States to meet the challenges of climate change.

For more information, please contact Ilan Kelmanthrough: http://www.ilankelman.org/contact.html

The project’s full title and description are as follows.

Perceptions and Understandings of Climate Changeand Migration: Lakshadweep and The Maldives(2012-2015)

It has been long recognized that changes in the envi-ronment can influence human movement patterns andbehaviour. It is also increasingly being suggested thatclimate change impacts will induce and increase suchmovements because migration becomes a potential adap-tation strategy. While the term ’climate change migra-tion’ implies that a direct causal line can be drawn be-tween climate change and migration, researchers are in-creasingly questioning that assumption, especially dueto poor empirical evidence to support that direct causalline.

This study investigates the assumptions and challengesto the assumptions in work on climate change and migra-tion. It aims to conceptualize and contextualize the rela-tionship between climate change and migration. The firstaspect, conceptualizing, refers to the knowledge gapsand the need to understand and detail conceptual issuesassociated with climate change and migration such as

terminology/definitions, links, drivers, thresholds, impli-cations, data requirements, methodological challenges,and other associated complexities. The second aspect,contextualizing, refers to understanding climate changeand migration debates within the nexus of migration,climate change, environment, and social developmentalong with governance and policy perspectives at differ-ent scales ranging from international to local.

Virtual Conference: Building a Bridge to Dis-aster Studies, 11-14 March 2013, co-sponsoredby the STS Forum on the 2011 Fukushima/EastJapan Disaster and Teach 3.11.

This is to announce an online pre-circulated pa-pers workshop that was organized between 11-14 March 2013 at the following web address:http://fukushimaforum.wordpress.com/online-forum-2/second-3-11-virtual-conference-2013/. As noted in thecall for papers, the conference welcomed all scholarsand others with an interest in Science and TechnologyStudies (STS) perspectives on the 2011 Fukushima/EastJapan Disaster to present their work. The event wasmodeled after a similar online conference held last year.Works-in-progress were actively encouraged.

Manuscripts were due by 4 March 2013 and remainedopen for commenting between 11-14 March 2013. Thesubmitted materials were archived permanently online sothat they can be cited as a published conference proceed-ing. However, as the organizers note, the materials canalso be removed at any point after the conference at theauthor’s request.

The following full essays are now available on the website:

• CECILIA IOANA MANOLIU, University ofTsukuba, Japan: “Recovery and Resilience:Japanese Communities After The 3/11 Earthquake:An Actor Oriented Perspective”.

• MARJA YLÖNEN, University of Jyväskylä, Fin-land: “Post-Fukushima: Signaled And Silenced As-pects Of Nuclear Safety Regulation”.

• MARKKU LEHTONEN, University of Sussex, UK:“Reactions To Fukushima In Finland, France AndThe UK – Rupture Or Continuity In The NuclearTechno-Politics?”.

• TINO BRUNO, University of Lyon, France: “Nu-clear As A Transnational Study Object: Introspec-tion And New Perspectives Of Research After TheFukushima Nuclear Plant Accident – Media dis-course at the dawn of the nuclear age in Japan,United States and France (1945-1965)”.

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• CHARLOTTE CABASSE, University of CaliforniaBerkeley, US: “The Making Of The Map, The Mak-ing Of The Risk”.

• DAVID NOVAK, UC Santa Barbara, US: “Perform-ing Antinuclear Movements In Post-3.11 Japan”.

• NORIKO MANABE, Princeton University, US:“How Music and Musicians Communicate theAntinuclear Message”.

• CHIKA WATANABE, Cornell University, US: “AidAs Analogy: Ambiguities Of ‘Lessons Learned’ InPost-Disaster Recovery”.

• XIAOMIN ZHU, Peking University, China: “Is Sci-ence Communication For Scientific Literacy? – Io-dine salt Rush-Purchasing in China”.

• YUKO KOBAYASHI, Anti-Nuclear Activist: “TheEnvironmental Radioactivity Monitoring Project InThe Vicinity of Fukuichi – Its Civil and SocialMeaning”.

• YUJI MIYAKE, Yokohama, Professional engineer:“It Is No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk?”.

• BEN EPSTEIN, University of Edinburgh, UK: “En-vironment and Wellbeing Clinical Practice andChallenges to Orthodox Psychopathology: Anethnographic account of mental health care in theJapanese context” (PhD Proposal with request forcomments).

• ATSUSHI AKERA, Rensselaer, US: “Historicaland Contemporary Studies of Disasters: Plac-ing Chernobyl, 9/11, Katrina, Deepwater Horizon,Fukushima Dai-Ichi and Other Events in Historicaland Contemporary Perspective”.

• ATSUSHI AKERA, Rensselaer, US: “Synopsis ofthe Sessions and Papers on the 2011 Fukushima /East Japan Disaster, 4S/EASST 2012 Annual Meet-ing”.

Additionally, the organizers also invited everyone topost their own thoughts and new topics for discussionat the Fukushima Forum Google Group mailing list(https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!forum/fukushima-forum) during the virtual conference.

The forum was co-sponsored by the STS Forum on the2011 Fukushima/East Japan Disaster and Teach 3.11.and was organized by Atsushi Akera (Rensselaer, US,akeraa@rpi.edu) with the managing editor of Teach 3.11,Lisa Onaga (Nanyang Technological University, Singa-pore).

Vincent Ialenti (vfi2@cornell.edu)

RESEARCH CONCEPT

Vital Societal Systems and Their Resilience:Comparison of National Energy and ElectricityInfrastructures in Finland and Italy

By Barbara Lucini1 (barbara.lucini@unicatt.it) &Antti Silvast2 (antti.silvast@helsinki.fi)

In this text, we discuss tentative ideas concerning a re-search concept that we are developing jointly towards aresearch proposal. The research concept focuses on theresilience of vital societal systems through a comparativeanalysis of national energy and electricity infrastructuresin Finland and Italy.

The notion of resilience has assumed increasing impor-tance in various fields recently including critical infras-tructure protection, disaster and crisis research, publichealth preparedness, urban design, organizational stud-ies, and crisis psychology. Generally, resilience meansthe pace of recovery from disruptions and the ability towithstand them. However, the operational meaning ofresilience, the features that increase it, the relevant scaleof analysis, and the most appropriate research method-ologies are still charted by researchers and no consensusexists regarding their configuration.

Our research interest in resilience is both methodologicaland empirical and focuses on resilience comparatively intwo different national contexts, a Southern European anda Northern European country respectively, Italy and Fin-land. The more specific research theme corresponds withrecent policies of the US National Infrastructure Coun-cil, the UK Cabinet Office, and the European Union’scritical infrastructure and information protection, amongothers, and concerns an object entitled infrastructure re-silience.

Infrastructure resilience designates the ability of antic-ipating, withstanding, absorbing, adapting to, and re-covering from disruptions within infrastructural systems.We want to study such resilience in electricity and energysystems in particular. These large systems are increas-ingly considered as core infrastructures in crisis and dis-aster events and as vital systems that have a fundamen-tal role in national security and national resilience on alllevels of society.

Our analytical interest draws on two sociological tradi-tions: phenomenological or symbolic interactionist per-spectives on the one hand and the field of large technicalsystems on the other hand.

1Sociology and Methodology of Social Research, Catholic Uni-versity of Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy.

2Department of Social Research, Sociology, University ofHelsinki, Finland.

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The first research line motivates research questions aboutmeaning making and sense making among professionalsand lay people in their daily work and life. From thisvantage point, it would be interesting to know, for exam-ple, how resilience emerged as a policy tool and conceptin Finland and Italy, what different actors in the energyfield of these countries (e.g. researchers, policy makers,engineers, civil protection agencies, citizens) understandby resilience, and which subjective framing of a resilientsystem this understanding refers to in different contexts.

The second research line, on the other hand, character-izes the operation of infrastructural systems from vari-ous angles – including the systems’ effects on multiplelevels of society, their worldwide standards and interna-tional common market rules, but also their shaping bylocal path dependencies.

Motivated by these considerations, one could start withacknowledging international energy transitions – such asderegulation, privatization of utilities, and low-carbontransitions – and align them with local infrastructural de-pendencies – such as different national energy mix, en-ergy consumption patterns, weather conditions, and in-ternational network interconnections. We can then askhow these transitions and path dependencies together af-fect energy and electricity infrastructure resilience andits understanding in Italy and Finland on several levelsfrom national disaster agencies to real-time infrastruc-ture management and individual households.

We believe that this wide range of considerations wouldhave interesting repercussions in the emerging empiri-cal and methodological social science discussions con-cerning infrastructure resilience in general and the pro-tection of critical electricity and energy infrastructuresin particular. Conceptually, the research initiative com-bines two research lines – phenomenology or symbolicinteractionism with large technical systems – that have toour knowledge only seldom been considered in the samestudy. Finally, to disaster and crisis and infrastructurepractitioners, our outcome would present two nationalmodels of crisis and disasters resilience in the context ofmanaging a critical societal infrastructure.

To attain the research objectives, we would draw on theresearch methodologies and policy tools of social sci-entific emergency planning with a particular reliance onsurveys, interviews with experts and lay people, andethnography. These methods – still innovative on thefield of infrastructure resilience – shed important lighton the social and professional representations of infras-tructural resilience as well as the sense and meaningmaking of all people involved within these infrastructurenetworks. Both authors are experienced and competentin these methods through their doctoral theses, research,and teaching.

The idea is in its early stages and we welcome any andall comments and feedback to this text. We would alsobe more than happy to hear about any relevant researchnetworks, empirical materials, funding sources, confer-ences, and bulletins in this research field. Thank you forhelping us with developing this initiative.

More information is available through the authors at thefollowing email addresses: barbara.lucini@unicatt.it andantti.silvast@helsinki.fi.

Researchers

Dr. Barbara Lucini is PhD in Sociology and Method-ology of Social Research, Catholic University of Sa-cred Heart, Milan. Her research interests are disasterresilience (especially from a sociological perspective),crisis and disaster management, civil protection sys-tems with particular attention on voluntary associations,methodology of social research (qualitative methods inparticular), and urban and environmental sociology. Forfurther information her work, see http://www.itstime.itand Idra Project, Itstime Disaster Resilience Agency,http://www.itstime.it/Disaster.htm.

MSocSc Antti Silvast is defending his doctoral thesis An-ticipating Interruptions: Security and Risk in a Liberal-ized Electricity Infrastructure at the Department of So-cial Research, Sociology, University of Helsinki. His re-search interests include risk research, electricity and en-ergy infrastructures, science and technology studies, andqualitative methodology (interviewing and field workin particular). He coordinated the international SecondAalto Event in Science and Technology Studies: Energyin Society (http://stsevent.org) in Helsinki on November2012. To learn more about his activities, visit his homepage at http://blogs.helsinki.fi/silvast.

WRITER’S CORNER

Leadership, Wisdom and the Post-Disaster Re-covery Process

By Elizabeth McNaughton (elizabeth.mcnaughton007@gmail.com)

To re-build in a way that is prosperous for some and pros-perous for now is relatively straightforward, good house-keeping and strong project management will get youthere. Greater prosperity and opportunity for all and forgenerations to come takes outstanding thinking, courageand leadership. There is no one recipe for recovery lead-ership; it is more of an art that draws on many disciplinesrooted in time and place. The purpose of this study (un-dertaken as a Winston Churchill fellowship) is to seek

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the wisdom of recovery leaders in the US, Australia andItaly to add value to the recovery of earthquake-ravagedChristchurch, New Zealand.

There were three elements that inspired my focus on re-covery leadership:

1. Reviews of post-disaster recovery programmes gen-erally focus on three key areas for improvement:leadership, coordination and communication. Inmany ways the quality of the leadership in turn de-termines the effectiveness of the coordination andcommunication aspects of the recovery process.

2. As a result of the violent and destructive earth-quakes in Christchurch, many people have had theirlives literally shaken from under them. At times theoutlook and public discussions seem unrelentinglygloomy. On a bleak Canterbury winter day it canbe hard to see anything but the glass half empty.It will take outstanding leadership at all levels tolift morale and raise people’s thoughts and spiritsabove their immediate struggles to see that thereare extraordinary possibilities and opportunities forgrowth and development.

3. My concern for many recovery leaders inChristchurch enduring constant and unman-ageable stress that affects health, relationshipsand performance – noting the impact this has oncommunity wellbeing.

This study combined both an online survey and semi-structured interviews. A total of 34 interviews with re-covery leaders were conducted with an additional nineresponding by online survey only. The report is com-prised of 10 key reflections and 14 recommendations.

10 Key Reflections

REFLECTION 1: ARTICULATING THE VISION

A common reflection across respondents was around thestrength of vision – a leader’s ability to harness energyand diverse ideas to create a common platform, to buildconsensus and trust as this is what brings people into therecovery fold.

REFLECTION 2: CRISIS AS A LEADERSHIP CRUCIBLE

The vision serves as the inspiration for others, but aloneit is not sufficient. Many levels of leadership are requiredto translate the vision into implementation. A key reflec-tion amongst respondents was the importance of givingenough encouragement, training and space for ‘emer-gent leaders’ to demonstrate leadership, particularly atthe community level.

REFLECTION 3: LEAVE YOUR CAPE AT HOME AND

BROADEN YOUR LEADERSHIP MODEL

When Gotham City or Metropolis is under threat we ex-pect Batman or Superman to be responsible for savingthe city or even the world within two hours. Of coursewe all like the idea that someone can sweep in and ‘savethe city’ but unfortunately disaster recovery leadershipdoes not work well this way.

REFLECTION 4: LISTEN TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE AT

THE RIGHT TIME

Although it sounds simple, active listening can be thehardest thing to do well when faced with so many over-whelming issues and day to day responsibilities. Over-whelmingly, respondents’ ‘if only’ moments and mis-takes came back to one common but simple theme – lis-tening.

REFLECTION 5: RECOVERY LEADERSHIP A FINE BAL-ANCING ACT

The most common word used by respondents was bal-ance. Balance can be defined as a state in which op-posing forces harmonise - find equilibrium. Recovery isa melting pot of agendas, a fine balancing act betweenspeed and quality, dreams and realities, economics andemotions. This in turn requires leaders to perform a greatbalancing act between timely concrete actions and valuefor money, and building meaningfully and safely for fu-ture generations in ways that benefit all citizens.

REFLECTION 6: THE IMPORTANCE OF TWO-WAY

COMMUNICATION

A strong two-way communication process can determinehow success is perceived more than the number of build-ings deconstructed or consents issued. You could thinkof it like a health episode, people remember how theywere treated more than the treatment itself.

REFLECTION 7: MAKING A DIFFERENCE

This commitment was reflected in the survey resultswhere the majority of respondents identified ‘positivefeedback from affected people’ as what inspired andthem to continue to make a difference. The downsideof this level of commitment and feeling of responsibil-ity is that leaders can put the needs of people or the citybefore their own needs.

REFLECTION 8: STRESS, BURNOUT AND SHARING

THE LOAD

Leaders can become confronted by their inability to keepgiving – recovery can become a quest, a vocation. Lead-ers have to keep going out into the community to absorbemotion and they get tired, people get angry with thembecause they cannot do this anymore. It is important for

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leaders to actively create the space for their own well-being as ‘crashing and unplanned exiting’ is detrimentalto the individual, the organisation and the recovery mis-sion.

REFLECTION 9: THE ‘USE BY’ DATE

It takes great personal insight to understand when youare no longer performing at your best and to make anadvanced exit plan. I have often been asked at the begin-ning of a recovery about the length of contracts for thoseworking on recovery. The answer was overwhelminglythat by the two year mark recovery leaders need to stop,assess and make a plan.

REFLECTION 10: WHAT DOES ‘STRONG’ MEAN?

Throughout the fellowship two types of recovery lead-ers started to emerge. There are some leaders who oxy-genate a room, where they encourage leadership in oth-ers and involve them in the visioning process and as a re-sult inspire many hours of community and professionalservice. There are others who ‘suck oxygen out’, ofteninadvertently through believing ‘they can do it all’, or‘nobody can do it as well’ or the ‘fear of losing control’.A key indicator to the type of leadership is how leadersrespond to an idea that is ‘out of the box’ or contrary tothe leader’s view. If there is a culture of ridicule or shut-ting ideas down you will not only de-energise one personbut everyone else who might be mustering the courage toput their thinking forward, and the effect on morale andinnovation is devastating.

The following quote is my favourite from the study andsummarises this piece of work well:

“So leaders in recovery – when your tutu fallsoff you need to be sure your frilly knickers areenough. We need to plan for times when weare not at our peak, because no one can be atpeak performance all the time. So, what areyour plan B’s? How prepared are your under-studies? And what are your resilience buildingstrategies? Can you access the wisdom; yoursand that of others?” Jane Booth, AustralianRed Cross, Quality and Assurance Manager,South Australia

This link will take you to the full text ofthe report and some biographical information:http://recoverymatters1.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/leadership-wisdom-and-the-post-disaster-recovery-process/

ANNOUNCEMENTS

PhD Scholarship in Anthropology of Disas-ter, Department of Anthropology, University ofCopenhagen, Denmark

Applications are invited for a PhD scholarship in an-thropology of disaster at the Department of Anthropol-ogy, University of Copenhagen. The PhD scholarship isfunded by the UCPH Excellence Program for Interdisci-plinary Research and is part of "Changing Disasters", aninterdisciplinary research program setting out to explorethe relationship between disasters and societies.

Applications should focus on one of the followingthemes:

• Institutional interaction in disaster contexts, for ex-ample military-civil or state-private sectors.

• Urban disasters and grassroots activism.

Deadline for applications: 30 May 2013. Employmentis to begin on 1 September 2013 or as soon as pos-sible thereafter. More information is available in thisaddress: http://anthropology.ku.dk/dep/vacancies/phd-scholarship-in-anthropology-of-disaster-at-the-department-of-anthropology/

Anthropology-Matters Mailing List (anthropology-matters@jiscmail.ac.uk)

The United Nations Sasakawa Award for Disas-ter Reduction

The United Nations Sasakawa Award for Disaster Re-duction is awarded to an individual or institutions thathave taken active efforts in reducing disaster risk in theircommunities and advocates for disaster risk reduction.

Together with the World Health Organization SasakawaHealth Prize and the UN Environment ProgrammeSasakawa Environment Prize, the United NationsSasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction is one of threeprestigious prizes established in 1986 by founding Chair-man of the Nippon Foundation, Mr. Ryoichi Sasakawa.

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It is worth approximately US $50,000 and is sharedamong the Laureates. Nominees also receive Certificatesof Distinction and Merit.

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduc-tion (UNISDR) is the administrator of the UN SasakawaAward for Disaster Reduction (isdr-sasakawa@un.org).

The 2013 theme is about "Acting As One". It is designedto draw out examples of DRR initiatives reflecting oneof the discipline’s most fundamental tenets: that DRR iseverybody’s business. The deadline of the applicationswas 28 February 2013.

The UN Sasakawa Award is presented during the GlobalPlatform for Disaster Risk Reduction. It was establishedin 2007 and takes place every two years. The Fourth Ses-sion will take place 19-23 May 2013 in Geneva, Switzer-land.

Murat Balamir, also the coordinator of the DSCRN, is amember of the jury of four that decides the award. Thejury has one person from each continent and Murat Bal-amir is the European representative. The DSCRN willpublish more information after the awarding in May.

Web sites

• United Nations Sasakawa Award for DisasterReduction: http://www.unisdr.org/we/campaign/sasakawa

• The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Re-duction: http://www.unisdr.org/we/coordinate/global-platform

• The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduc-tion (UNISDR): http://www.unisdr.org/

Murat Balamir (murat.balamir@gmail.com)

UPCOMING EVENTS

Call for Papers: Cultures of Disasters, Univer-sity of Oslo, Norway, 6-8 November 2013

An international conference on humanistic disasterstudies

Modern disaster research, dating back to the early 1920s,started up as a branch of sociology but has widened itscircles to neighboring academic disciplines. In recentyears, disasters have become a rapidly growing field ofresearch in the humanities. The reason for this growthis obvious: disasters are incessantly foretold and retold

– in news broadcast, movies, novels, operas, computergames and amusement parks. Due to global media net-works and communication technology audiences all overthe world are able to follow the stories of floods, earth-quakes and volcanic eruptions in real time and at longdistances.

However, the myriad of stories about disasters are struc-tured around a limited number of narrative forms andmotifs – the theodicy, the apocalypse, the state of excep-tion, the trauma, etc. This repertoire of cultural patternsnot only structure how we imagine disasters, they alsostructure how we handle disasters. For instance, the dra-matic media images from New Orleans had significantimpact on the authority’s miserable disaster managementafter hurricane Katrina. Thus, stories of disasters maywork as both models for and models of social practices.

The overall goal of Cultures of Disasters is to explorehow the humanities can contribute to modern disaster re-search. How are disaster narratives structured? How dodisaster survivors tell about their experiences? What arethe aesthetics of disaster representations? How are rep-resentations and narratives of disasters intertwined withdisaster management? How does the flow of disaster re-ports frame our understandings of risk? How do pastand future disasters affect present societies? What dodisaster representations tell about understandings of therelationship between the past, the present and the future?How do disasters bring up to date questions about the re-lationship between natural evils and moral evils?

The conference is dealing with both historical and con-temporary perspectives on a broad range of topics. Theseinclude but are not limited to:

• History and disasters.

• Disasters and media.

• Disasters in popular culture.

• Time and temporalities of disasters.

• Representations and narration of disaster.

• Disasters and personal experience narratives.

• Apocalyptic imaginaries.

• Spectacular aesthetics.

• Past and present cultures of risk and uncertainty.

• Disaster metaphors, concepts and symbolic forms.

• Disasters and notions of nature.

• The ethics of disasters.

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• Natural disasters in climate rhetorics.

• Disaster fiction.

Titles and abstracts (max 200 words) are to be sent toKyrre Kverndokk – kyrre.kverndokk@ikos.uio.no – byJune 15, 2013. Please use one of the following file for-mats: .doc(x), .odt or .rtf.

The conference is organized by the Nordic research net-work Cultures of disasters in cooperation with KUL-TRANS. The conference is funded by The ResearchCouncil of Norway.

The event’s home page can be found athttp://www.uio.no/forskning/tverrfak/kultrans/aktuelt/konferanser/cultures-of-disasters/cfp/.

Jörgen Sparf (jorgen.sparf@miun.se)

Call for Papers and Session Proposals: Deal-ing with Disasters Conference (DwD 2013) /4th Conference of the International Society forIntegrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM2013), Northumbria University, Newcastle uponTyne, UK, 4-6 September 2013

From Opportunity to Action: Bridging the Gapbetween Disaster Reduction and Development

through Science(s), Technology and People CentredActions

DwD / IDRiM 2013 Overview

The focus of the conference builds on opportunitiesthrough science and technology, political will and be-haviour change to address current crises and reduce risksfor future generations. Whilst knowledge about the na-ture and context of disasters has proliferated, many po-tential actions for integrated disaster reduction remainfar from realised. The disjuncture between existing op-portunities and actions both present and anticipated is acomplex problem of the disaster and development nexus.Driven by common objectives of survivability, there is aneed to bridge gaps between disaster reduction and de-velopment through varied types of science (natural, so-cial and others), technologies and people centric actions.This requires ‘smart awareness’, motivation and vision

to enable combined disaster reduction and sustainabledevelopment at local and global levels. The conferenceaims to address opportunities for action through variedstate of the art contributions from the worlds of disas-ter science, technology, policy and practice. It is alsoopen to expertise less conventionally recognised withinthis field. It intends to stimulate a next generation ofideas and actions for disaster reduction.

Cross-cutting Themes

The conference focus solicits papers and sessions in-formed by cross-cutting themes of disaster management,sustainable development, resilience building, vulnera-bility reduction, risk assessment and governance, riskfinancing, living with uncertainty, transformative pro-cesses, cultural recognition and change, poverty reduc-tion, wellbeing, climate change adaptation, integrationscience, disaster communication, social subgroups, in-novation, communities of practice, and policy includ-ing dialogue from different disciplines related to risk.These cross-cutting themes from academic, policy andpractice dialogues will for the purpose of this confer-ence be considered interrelated, mutually informativeand key to moving from opportunity to action. The con-ference focus will be maintained by reflecting on howtheory, method and implementation presented by theseprocesses can make a difference to the future of dealingwith disasters.

Conference topics particularly encouraged

We are keen to receive proposals for papers or sessionsrelating to the following, though other contributions as-sociated with the conference theme absent from this listwill also be considered:

• Understanding uncertainties to reduce gaps to ac-tion.

• Using poverty led actions to address disaster risk.

• Developing public-private-civil societal-academicpartnerships in disaster and development work.

• Investing in safer human habitats – safety science –post disaster reconstruction and building resilience.

• Experiential and intuitive learning in disaster anddevelopment contexts.

• Engaging demographic change – child centred andelderly persons disaster risk reduction.

• Health and wellbeing centred disaster reduction.

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• Social and economic mobility, displacement andadaptation.

• Visualisation and communication in disaster risk re-duction.

• Social protection, insurance and human security.

• Risk governance, education, development and col-lective decision making.

• ‘The risk governance, scientific advisors, scienceand policy interface’ (This theme already identifiedas a Special Session – proposals for papers are in-vited).

• Complex ‘Natech’ disasters – critical scenario de-velopment.

• Developing applications of forensic science, emer-gency management and disaster warning systems.

• A new humanitarianism.

Conference Features

The conference will include plenary, parallel, poster,panel, ‘young scientists’ and doctoral sessions. A fullset of double blind peer reviewed proceedings will beproduced with special editions of journals / book. Sev-eral publishers are interested in providing outlets for thisevent. Further partnerships and sponsorships in progress.

Dates

December 10th Opening of abstract and sessionproposals. Send tosz.dwdconf@northumbria.ac.uk.

December 19th Opening of registrations viahttp://www.northumbria.ac.uk/dwd-idrim2013.

April 30th Abstract and session proposalsclosing.

May 15th Announcement of conferenceprogramme.

June 30th Full paper submission and earlyregistration close.

Associated meetings and events at DwD2013 / IDRiM2013 include:

• IDRiM Society Board Meeting and General Assem-bly.

• British Festival of Science (BSF) 7th – 12thSeptember, Newcastle including a specially hostedDwD/IDRiM 2013 high level panel on; ‘Commu-nication and Disaster Reduction: the future of sci-ence, education and politics in negotiating uncertainnature’ (7th Sept).

• Meeting of the Global Summit of Research Insti-tutes for Disaster Risk Reduction (multiple part-ners).

• Meeting of the Disaster and Development Alliance– ‘UK Champions for Change Initiative’.

• Delphe – British Council / DFID meeting on ‘Dis-aster Education for Community Resilience’.

• Meeting of the Japan-UK Disaster Risk ReductionStudy Programme.

• Board Meetings of at least three international jour-nals focussed on disaster reduction.

• . . . other meetings and events to be added by June2013.

Contacts:

• Conference website: http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/dwd-idrim2013

• Email: sz.dwdconf@northumbria.ac.uk

• IDRiM website: http://idrim.org

• Email: society@idrim.org

Christine Hagar (christine.hagar@sjsu.edu)

Call for Papers: Crisis and Conflict, 4th Bi-annual PACSA meeting – Peace and ConflictStudies in Anthropology – Copenhagen, Den-mark, 28-30 August 2013

Organized in collaboration with DIGNITY - Danish In-stitute against Torture and Global Refugee Studies, Aal-borg University.

News on different ’crises’ dominate our media; we havethe ongoing crisis in the Middle East and the crisis atthe Horn of Africa, not to mention the global financialcrises, and the ecological crises linked to climate changeand devastating natural disasters affecting populationsaround the world. How do we conceptualize and under-stand these different forms of crisis, and how can a focuson these diverse crises enhance our anthropological un-derstanding of peace and conflict?

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For this PACSA meeting we encourage reflections onwhat it means to live in a state of crisis. How may weunderstand crises? Is it a motor of change? A catalyst forsocio-cultural transformation, or is it merely a gesture in-tended to frame the abnormal? How do these discussionsthen affect our conceptualizations of peace and conflict,particularly in situations where crisis is permanent oreven normalized? And finally, what happens when indi-vidual perspectives meet systemic views of peace, crisis,and conflict?

Whichever way we chose to understand crisis, it is clearthat it is located somewhere beyond the homoeostasis ofpeace, yet prior to the ultimate turmoil characteristic ofconflict. Which are therefore the links between crisison one hand, and the prospects for peace as well as thethreats of conflict on the other? How are these zonesdelineated towards one another?

For this upcoming PACSA meeting we ask participantsto submit abstracts that explore relations and intercon-nections between crises on the one hand and the conceptsof conflict, violence and peace on the other. Please sub-mit an individual abstract or an abstract that fits in withone of the following proposed panels (max. 300 words)before April 30th 2013 to pacsacph2013@gmail.com.

Format: the name of document (as separate attachment)should include your last name Please clearly state if yoursubmission should be considered for a specific panel andstate which one. For the descriptions of the proposedpanels, see this site: http://www.pacsa-web.eu/category/pacsa-events/

Susann Ullberg (susann.ullberg@fhs.se)

THE DSCRN ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER

This is the periodic electronic newsletter of the Disaster,Conflict and Social Crisis Research Network (DSCRN).The purpose of the DSCRN is to promote the study,research and analysis of “natural”, “technological” and“social” disasters with a view to contributing to the de-velopment of disaster resilient European communities,and preventing or mitigating the human, economic, so-cial, cultural and psychological effects of crises and dis-asters.

The DSCRN Electronic Newsletter is published threetimes a year (April, August, December). The previouslypublished newsletters are downloadable at the network’swebpage: http://www.dscrn.org.

Announcements of conferences, book, film, and CD-ROM reviews, reportage on conferences, disaster di-aries, brief articles on best or worst practices in disas-ter prevention and recovery, commentaries on disasters

and crises, human interest stories relevant to disasters,etc. should be sent electronically to the editor, Antti Sil-vast (dscrn.news@gmail.com) no later than the first ofthe month of publication. Contributions to the newslet-ter should preferably be written in a concise format (½-1page long maximum) in order to make reading compre-hensive albeit focused. Ideas should be referenced (Au-thor, year), but there is no need for a complete referencelist.

Relevant contributions from the field of disaster, conflictand crisis research, as well as from applied disaster, con-flict and crisis management practice, are most welcome!

All “signed” texts express the opinions of the authors andnot necessarily those of the coordinators, the editor or ofthe DSCRN.

Murat Balamir, DSCRN Coordinator

Nina Blom Andersen, DSCRN Vice Coordinator

Antti Silvast, E-Newsletter Editor

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