DISTINGUISHED GUEST SEMINAR IN RISK AND SAFETY: Towards a code of conduct for post-disaster research

Disasters, especially the larger ones, stir increasing interest amongst researchers, who immediately converge to affected areas to conduct studies of various kinds, from characterisation of the hazards and infrastructure damage assessment to social surveys on the impact of the events and post-traumatic stress disorder. Such an influx of scholars into areas that otherwise often receive limited attention raises a number of challenges. This presentation will discuss two of these challenges. Firstly, it will focus on power relations amongst researchers and their respective positionality. The presentation will eventually argue that skewed power relations amongst scholars result in epistemological tensions in the research we conduct following disaster. These tensions reflect our broader struggle to live up to the research ethos we embrace in the first place, especially the ideas and principles of the so-called vulnerability paradigm of disaster studies. The presentation will close by proposing a code of conduct for post-disaster research.