The disaster chronotope : Spatial and temporal learning in governance of extreme events

Abstract

How does the type of disaster affect the learning among key stakeholder groups? This chapter provides a framework of disaster governance through examination of local and global response strategies based on the spatial and temporal attributes (or chronotope) of disaster events and related discourse. A series of case studies builds on the concept of “panarchy” in resilience and adaptation sciences to reveal the interaction between disasters and the capacity of various stakeholder groups to adjust the rules and assumptions that underlie disaster governance. With particular focus on patterns of learning, we map our findings in a matrix to reveal disasters as complex social-ecological processes at three levels: (1) the small fast-moving local system, (2) the nation-state as the intermediate level in speed and size, and (3) the global community of nation-states as the largest, slowest moving social system