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While the capability approach is increasingly being adopted for evaluating well-being and social justice in the field of human development, this approach in disaster research has remained scarce. This research thus seeks to address the disaster risk that humans face through a lens of capabilities, with a focus on the lives of people with disabilities. A multi-case study approach was adopted and two rural communes in Vietnam were selected as study contexts. Data were collected using focus group discussions and interviews that involved people with disabilities, parents/caregivers of people with intellectual/psychosocial disabilities, and representatives from related organizations. It was found that people with disabilities are affected by disasters due to the lack of capabilities that they value in coping with disasters. A range of capabilities that people with disabilities value was revealed in the study sites, with many being valued not only in times of disasters but also in daily life. The findings also highlight that, to actualize their valued capabilities, people with disabilities need access not only to resources but also to the factors that enable them to convert the resources to their valued capabilities. In most cases, the limitations to the achievement of capabilities are related to the external environment.

Nowadays there are approximately 80 Anglophone journals that deal primarily with disaster risk reduction (DRR) and allied fields. This large array signals a sustained, if uneven, growth in DRR scholarship but also competition between the offerings of different publishers and institutions. The purpose of this article is first to summarise the development of academic publishing on DRR from its early beginnings to the present day. The paper then evaluates the current state of publishing in this field and discusses possible future trends. Next, it identifies some possible opportunities, challenges, expectations, and commitments for journal editors both within DRR and academia more broadly, including those that refer to changes in the use of terminology, the relentless increase in the number of papers submitted, the expansion and dangers of predatory journals, different peer review models, open access versus paywalls, citations and bibliography metrics, academic social networks, and copyright and distribution issues.

In recent years, new forms of participatory mapping have emerged that foster the participation of children in disaster risk reduction. Participatory mapping enables children to produce insightful representations of their local area, including their perceptions of hazards, vulnerability and capacities. This caters for a diversity of knowledge and perceptions on hazards and disaster. Such maps provide a way that children can participate in decision-making processes about disaster risk reduction with adults. Furthermore, technology and games using devices such as global positioning systems, mobile phones, digital cameras, virtual reality and video games provide opportunities to conduct participatory mapping with children. This paper reviews different forms of participatory mapping and their purpose and associated strengths and weaknesses in children’s participation in disaster risk reduction activities. Drawing on case studies of participatory Minecraft and LEGO mapping, this paper discusses new opportunities and related challenges to conducting participatory mapping with children

Knowledge of how homeless people deal with natural hazards and disasters is sparse and there is a remarkable absence of homeless people in policies and practices for disaster risk reduction (DRR). This article aims at filling this gap by exploring the lives of homeless people in two New Zealand cities that are exposed to natural hazards. It shows that natural hazards are of marginal concern to homeless people in comparison to the everyday hazards that they experience and that make their everyday life a disaster in itself. The disaster of everyday life is created and compounded by homeless people’s precarious lifeworlds. The article, nonetheless, shows that homeless people’s vulnerability to natural hazards remains high as they lack power to control the processes that shape their everyday lives, to prepare for large-scale events, and to be represented in DRR policy. Therefore, the article ultimately argues that disaster policies require greater attention to be paid to the power structures that create persistent precarity and the ways in which this is experienced in everyday life.

Study the effects of earthquakes, floods and other natural hazards with sensitivity to ethical dilemmas and power imbalances. Study the effects of earthquakes, floods and other natural hazards with sensitivity to ethical dilemmas and power imbalances.