Human Security and Natural Disasters

The human security concept compels us to question prevailing norms and institutions at every level in order to understand why certain individuals and communities fall victim to deprivation and abuse. This excellent collection takes the human security debate forward by focusing upon natural disasters, an area that has been very much under-explored. It is global in outlook and theoretically sophisticated, and it deserves to be read widely for its diverse and authoritative insights.

-Edward Newman, University of Leeds, UK

Freedom from want and freedom from fear, the basic tenets of human security, are never threatened more than when a disaster strikes. At a time when the UN has committed to mainstreaming human security across its policies, this book provides essential insights into how human security can help deal with natural disasters. Rich in their analyses and insightful in their conclusions, the contributions show clearly the potential of human security to shape state responses.

-Matthias C. Kettemann, University of Graz, Austria

A very important book that sheds new light on questions of human security and natural disasters, especially with regard to gender-related issues, public health responses and human rights issues. A wide range of case studies ranging from the Haiti earthquake, Indian Ocean tsunami to Hurricane Katrina bring the reader close to cutting edge critical research on how natural disasters severely affect human security.

-Geoff Wilson, University of Plymouth, UK

This important book, emerging in response to Japan's triple disasters of 2011, draws our attention to the relationship between natural disasters and human security. Aside from illustrating how disasters threaten human security, this volume points to the complex inter-relationship between disasters themselves, the international structural political and economic arrangements that worsen or complicate a response to them, and 'on-the-ground' dynamics of vulnerability, adaptive capacity and resilience within particular communities. This rich set of essays provides one of the more nuanced accounts of a broadened conception of human security, while challenging us to rethink key institutions and practices of 'security' more broadly. As natural disasters increase in intensity and frequency with dynamics of climate change, for example, making sense of how they might be incorporated and approached within current or new institutions will become an ever more urgent enterprise.

-Matt McDonald, The University of Queensland, Australia