Vulnerability versus Resilience: The politics of language in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

Welcome

• Des Gasper, Prof of Human Development, Development Ethics and Public Policy, ISS 

Warming up

• Greg Bankoff, professor of environmental history, University of Hull 
  Greg co-edited the volume ‘Mapping Vulnerability’ in 2004 and recently published Remaking the world in our own image: vulnerability, resilience and adaptation as historical discourses ‘ (Disasters) that inspired this roundtable. 

Panel

• Kenneth Hewitt, Professor Emeritus of Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada 
  Ken edited the hallmark publication of ‘Interpretations of Calamity from the of human ecology’ in 1983 challenged the notion of ‘natural disasters’ and reinterpreted famine 
• Terry Cannon (Senior Research Fellow, IDS) 
  Terry has been a leading disaster scholar since four decades and is one of the authors of At Risk that put vulnerability at the centre stage of disaster theory. 
• Lisa Schipper (Environmental Social Science Research Fellow, ECI, University of Oxford) 
  Lisa will shiver if you mention the word ‘resilience’, but smile and laugh if you talk about socio-cultural vulnerability. 
• Luis Artur (Professor and Dean of Agronomy and Forestry Engineering Universidade Eduardo Mondlane)
  Luis made history with his thesis on the everyday politics of disaster in Mozambique, for which he closely worked with the Mozambican Red Cross. 
• Sarah Bradshaw (Professor of Gender and Sustainable Development) 
  Say gender and disaster, say Sarah Bradshaw – the real deal when it comes to feminist disaster studies

There will be ample time for discussion with the audience! 

Closing remarks

• Ben Wisner (Visiting Professor, Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London)
  Ben co-authored At Risk and co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction and was an early member of La Red: Network of Social Science for Prevention of Diasters in Latin American. He has been as scientific advisor since 2007 to the Global Network of Civil Society Organizations for Disaster Prevention. 

Chair

• Thea Hilhorst, professor of humanitarian aid and reconstruction at ISS
  Thea co-authored with Greg Bankoff and Georg Frerks the volume ‘Mapping Vulnerability’ in 2004 – a book without a single map as a critic complained but that managed to place vulnerability on the map of the disaster studies landscape.