McGowran, Peter;
Johns, Hannah;
Raju, Emmanuel;
Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja;
(2023)
The making of India's COVID-19 disaster: A Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Assemblage analysis.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
, 93
, Article 103797. 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103797.
Preview |
Text
1-s2.0-S2212420923002777-main.pdf - Published Version Download (899kB) | Preview |
Abstract
This article analyses the suite of policies and measures enacted by the Indian Union Government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic through apparatuses of disaster management. We focus on the period from the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, until mid-2021. This holistic review adopts a Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Assemblage conceptual approach to make sense of how the COVID-19 disaster was made possible and importantly how it was responded to, managed, exacerbated, and experienced as it continued to emerge. This approach is grounded in literature from critical disaster studies and geography. The analysis also draws on a wide range of other disciplines, ranging from epidemiology to anthropology and political science, as well as grey literature, newspaper reports, and official policy documents. The article is structured into three sections that investigate in turn and at different junctures the role of governmentality and disaster politics; scientific knowledge and expert advice, and socially and spatially differentiated disaster vulnerabilities in shaping the COVID-19 disaster in India. We put forward two main arguments on the basis of the literature reviewed. One is that both the impacts of the virus spread and the lockdown-responses to it affected already marginalised groups disproportionately. The other is that managing the COVID-19 pandemic through disaster management assemblage/apparatuses served to extend centralised executive authority in India. These two processes are demonstrated to be continuations of pre-pandemic trends. We conclude that evidence of a paradigm shift in India's approach to disaster management remains thin on the ground.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The making of India's COVID-19 disaster: A Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Assemblage analysis |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103797 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103797 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Assemblage theory, COVID-19, Disaster risk governance, Disaster risk management, India, Mobility |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Inst for Risk and Disaster Reduction |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10172330 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
