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Disaster Forensics: Governance, Adaptivity and Social Innovation

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Disaster Forensics

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Abstract

This chapter seeks to contribute to the discourse on disaster forensics, by arguing that the root cause and complex causality is ultimately governance, ideally cultivating the collective ability to navigate disasters rather than to command control. The focus will be on the social dimension and its impact on disasters. Governance theory, combined with complex adaptive systems theory (Duit and Galaz in Gov Int J Policy Adm Inst 21(3):311–335, 2008 [12]), will provide the analytical foundation for the examination of Hurricane Katrina and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. The theoretical deconstruction will reveal that the traditional virtues embedded in the social amplification of risk (Kasperson and Kasperson in The social contours of risk, volume I: publics, risk communication and the social amplification of risk. Earthscan, London, 2005 [21]), remain at the heart of complex causality. With this insight, it is observed that social innovation, with its inherent positive connotation (Matei and Antonie in Soc Behav Sci 185:61–66, 2015 [28]), is expanding the horizon for how social divisions, vulnerabilities and resilience are measured. Optimistically, it is suggested that social innovation, driven by civil society, may prove a vital component in the creation of a new social narrative.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Dorte Jessen

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  1. Dorte Jessen
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Correspondence to Dorte Jessen .

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  1. Centre for Security Science , OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada

    Anthony J. Masys

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Jessen, D. (2016). Disaster Forensics: Governance, Adaptivity and Social Innovation. In: Masys, A. (eds) Disaster Forensics. Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41849-0_6

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