Co-developing best bets for participatory disaster risk management in a postcolonial harmscape

Abstract

The conditions that characterise marginal and informal settlements in the Global South make the environmental hazards resulting from the current Climate Crisis more dangerous, giving rise to multifaceted risks that can be characterised as Anthropocene harmscapes. As such settlements are home to a large and growing population, this is an increasingly widespread problem that, if not addressed, could result in deaths, unrest and increasing numbers of climate refugees. Recognizing that neither climate change nor informality are going to disappear, it is essential to find practicable, contextualised and locally appropriate ways of mitigating and coping with climate change-exacerbated risks such as water scarcity, floods and fires. This paper describes a co-research process intended to enable residents of at-risk settlements to mobilize their own knowledges and experiences to identify and articulate strategies with a realistic potential for practical implementation. It demonstrates how this process yielded suggestions for actions that operate at a range of scales, from small changes to everyday practices that can be accomplished by individuals and households to infrastructural improvements that need cooperation and resourcing from local or national authorities. It also demonstrates some of the limitations of decolonial approaches that uniquely prioritize local knowledges when attempting to address challenges with global origins.