Studying-up representations of disasters and Indigenous Peoples

Disasters – the combination of hazard and vulnerability – are complex, social problems. Yet, these complexities and nuances are often missed in representations of disasters, meaning that many representations ofdisasters omit political and social framings. Multiple actors are involved in disaster risk reduction (DRR), including powerful and visible sectors that engage with diverse peoples. Indigenous peoples, who have their own unique politics, are often neglected in DRR and misrepresented by powerful actors. Limited research has focused on how disasters in Indigenous contexts are represented. This is an important research area because Indigenous contexts reveal unique power dynamics that create disasters, but which have long been obfuscated from representations. In this PhD, I ‘study up’ three powerful and visible actors – academia, the news media and the international humanitarian community – and use a combination ofautoethnography, discourse analysis and narrative analysis to reveal how these institutions shape knowledge and representations of disasters and their governance in Indigenous contexts. I find that within these institutions there are subtle ways of communicating how disasters should be governed in Indigenous contexts. Overall, hegemonic ideologies of neoliberalism are dominant, which depoliticise disasters (in particular, through masking colonialism), evade questions of Indigenous people’s self-determination, and hinder ethical and engaged disaster research. I also find pockets of less dominant ideologies where alternatives to neoliberalism (such as Indigenous peoples self-determination and feminist care ethics) are proposed. I discuss these findings through an examination of how disasters are defined, by whom and what futures and histories are imagined and acknowledged as a result. I conclude dominant and hegemonic representations depoliticise disasters by emphasising their naturalness and upholding neoliberal forms ofdisaster governance. However, less dominant representations do seep through that show that disasters are rooted in colonialism. These representations centre power inequalities and propose greater Indigenous self-determination as a part of any DRR.