Disaster discourses, policy values and institutional responses

An interesting contemporary study of the processeswhereby scientists, policy makers and vulnerable people constructdiscourses of urban risk and floods. This study developed a socialconstructionist analysis of natural disaster at the policy level for Mexico byfocusing on arguments, discourses and rhetorical elements. Theinterpretivist analysis of disaster policies carried out in thisresearch highlighted the importance of taking into consideration the existenceof different, and often contested, policy values which underpindifferent policy responses. It explained the rhetorical and discursivepower of disaster causal stories in constructing reality of ChalcoValley s floods, peri- urban interface of Mexico City, and provided a methodto examine the inundations causality as a policy problem.

Autorentext

Fernando Aragon-Durand is a PhD in Planning Studies (UCL),London, UK, specialised in risk, vulnerability and disaster analysis in Latin Americaurban contexts. Dr. Aragon-Durand is a member of the IPCC expert panel of the working groupII "Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation" for the 5th assessment report.