Citation

Hirono M, Nurdin MR. Disasters 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/disa.12634

PMID

38888061

Abstract

Recent policy discourse on the localisation of disaster management and humanitarian assistance lacks attention to the culture, history, and traditions of the Global South. This special issue of Disasters argues that it is imperative to recognise the dynamic, interactive, contested, and negotiated nature of local knowledge. Such local knowledge saves lives by enabling responders to situate ad hoc, one-off events such as disasters in the broader and deeper context of community relationships, thereby providing more appropriate and more effective aid. Through the cases of China, Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines, this special issue examines such dynamic local knowledge using an analytical framework consisting of three manifestations of local knowledge, namely: social capital; contextual historical memories; and adaptation to new ideas. These three manifestations show the ways in which local knowledge creates local capacity, via which local, national, and international disaster respondents can centre their response coordination, and in turn, demonstrate how local capacity reformulates local knowledge.

Language: en

Keywords

social capital; disaster management; adaptation to new ideas; contextual historical memories; humanitarian assistance; local knowledge; localisation; locally‐led