Disasters are not natural, far from it! The impact of a crisis is shaped by a wide range of societal factors and disasters replicate and amplify the inequalities that exist in society so that it is the marginalized communities tare hit the hardest. The Covid pandemic has once again taught us that lesson. Yet, we continue to refer to sudden onset crisis as “natural disasters” and that is not just a question of semantics, it is an indication of how we tell the wrong story of crisis and very often therefore also seek the wrong solutions.
This weeks guests on Trumanitarian are Ksenia Chmutina and Jason von Meding. They are academics and co-hosts of the podcast “Deconstructing Disasters.” Ksenia and bring an important perspective to us as practitioners, and because I wanted to explore what we can use each other for.
You can find the Disasters Deconstructed podcast here: https://disastersdecon.podbean.com
Transcript
Disasters are not natural, far from it. The impact of a crisis is shaped by a wide range of societal factors and disasters replicate and amplify the inequalities that exist in society so that it is the most marginalised communities that are hit the hardest. We've just lived through two years of a textbook example of that, with the way in which the pandemic has disproportionately affected the most vulnerable in our world. Yet, we continue to refer to sudden onset crisis as natural disasters. And that is not just a question of semantics, it's an indication of how we often tell the wrong stories of the nature of crisis, and therefore also very often seek the wrong solutions. I think that's very much true for us. As practitioners, we talk about the most vulnerable and we make them the centre of our discourse and of our interventions, but ask yourself how often we dig into the root causes of this vulnerability we talk about and try to integrate into our programmes components that can address the structural issues leading to the situations we work with. I'm not saying that no progress has been made (there are plenty of good examples of smart humanitarian programming), but if you follow the Nexus discussion just a little bit, I think you will agree that we still have some way to go in terms of engaging with, and integrating, non humanitarian narratives and objectives into our programmes, even when it is not in conflict with the humanitarian principles. So it's a good thing that we have disaster scholars, and that this week's guests on Trumanitarian, our Ksenia Chmutina and Jason von Meding. Ksenia and Jason are academics and co-hosts of the podcast deconstructing disasters. I stumbled across the pod by accident, and have been listening to it for a couple of months. It's informative and very entertaining. Ksenia and Jason can literally deconstruct anything and have a great time doing so. And if you don't believe me, I can recommend a Christmas episode, where they even managed to deconstruct the naughty and the nice list. Spoiler alert, WHO ends up somewhere in between naughty and nice. I wanted to have Ksenia and Jason on the show, because I think they bring an important perspective to us as practitioners and because I wanted to explore what we can use each other for. It was a highly enjoyable conversation, and I hope you will find it useful too. Before we jump in, there is as always a couple of things you can do if you would like to support the show. Firstly, rate and review us wherever you listen, it really helps. Secondly, if you like the show, recommend it to friends and colleagues. You can also follow us on social media, subscribe to our newsletters and all that, but actually, the most important thing you can do is to tell us what you think, give us some feedback suggest new episodes, critique is also very welcome. We really listen to it. You can reach us on social media, or on email info@trumanitarian.org. Enjoy the conversation.
Ksenia Chmutina and Jason von Meding, welcome to Trumanitarian.
Jason von Meding:Thank you.
Ksenia Chmutina:Hi, thank you.
Lars Peter Nissen:It's fantastic to have you guys here. We don't have many academics pass by the show. But I managed to lure the two of you in so I'm on best behaviour today and slightly nervous of having such big brains on the show. Ksenia, you are a Reader in Sustainable and Resilient Urbanism at Loughborough University. Is that right?
Ksenia Chmutina:Yeah, that's right. And, you know, points for pronouncing my unpronounceable title.
Lars Peter Nissen:Great, thank you. And Jason, do you an associate professor at University of Florida?
Jason von Meding:Yes, indeed.
Lars Peter Nissen:And the two of you together run a podcast called Deconstructing Disasters that I have had the pleasure of listening to over the past couple of months and it's a really interesting podcast for anybody with sort of an interest in disasters and understanding that as a phenomenon. It also happens to be a lot of fun. You guys seem to have a tremendously good time when you record the show. [guests are in agreement] But just start by telling us a bit about this podcast. Why did you start this and what's the purpose of it?
Jason von Meding:I think we got talking a few years ago, maybe 2o17 or so. Right? We got talking about you know... we just share in our frustrations about some of the ways that disasters were discussed and analysed and how normative a lot of the analysis was that was coming out from academics in particular. And, you know, we saw how people were like learning about what, you know, the core concepts of disasters in a very normative way. And so students were like picking up and doing the same thing. And I think we were frustrated. But we also thought, you know, there's a way to do something that's educational, but also really fun and, you know, something that would give us an outlet to just like, rant about stuff, and also engage with really interesting people, you know, we started talking about like, what if we could talk to this person or this person, because we really appreciate the way that they conceptualise disaster. And so we just... it was pretty organic. And we, we talked about it for several months, and then kind of started to really consult with other people and plan it and do demos. And we did demos that were terrible. And but, yeah, it took us a, what, nine months, before we released our first episode. And, yeah, we've been going for a few years. And I always tell people, it's like one of the most fun and rewarding parts of what I do. And it allows me to maybe think about things in so many different ways, because we have some incredible guests that come on, and just like stretch the way that we're thinking. And so to some extent, you can do that if you're in your books all the time, but it makes a big difference when you're, like, talking in real time with people and like stretching each other's way of thinking. So I don't know if you want to add to the Ksenia, but it's a really rewarding, enriching experience for me for sure.
Ksenia Chmutina:Yeah, same for me. You know, I absolutely love doing it. And not just because we get to chat to kind of most amazing inspiring people, but you know, we learn so much from them, as well. And I think one of the things that we are now kind of realised we can do you know, and we're in season six now, is that podcast actually allows us not only to kind of explore our ideas, right, and perhaps communicate the... or unpack with disasters is a bit better, but also to amplify some voices which are really quite hidden, you know? Although there are so many amazing scholars from global south, amazing early career scholars who are just, you know... they don't get cited. They aren't known just because they're from global south and they're early career. So yeah, that's just been probably the most rewarding experience. And we'll keep going forever, I'm pretty sure.
Lars Peter Nissen:You spoke about being frustrated or annoyed with the way disasters are described and discussed and taught at universities. What specifically is it that frustration, or that frustrated you?
Ksenia Chmutina:I think, you know, for me... You know, how long do you have? This the first question. [laughing] I'm sure we'll come back to this later on today. But for me, I guess, the most frustrating thing has always been the fact that disasters are seen as a kind of a natural phenomena that is not connected to politics at all, right? That it's just seen as an event, as a shock. And is never, or hardly ever, discussed in the context of capitalism. And those relationships have just never acknowledged and done and the podcast really allows us to unpack that.
Jason von Meding:Like I said earlier, it's like the, the approaches that are very, like... pretend to or maybe intentionally exclude any analysis of power as well. And avoid, like, disaster analysis, or thinking that avoids some of the discussions of oppression, capitalism, like you said, power, inequality: all of these things that are, for us, are like foundational to what a disaster is, and why people are impacted differently in disaster. But the idea that we can just have a normative response, that helps everybody equally, is to me, it just reinforces the status quo. So... and it tries to tries to return everything to normal, so that those in power don't really need to worry about the oppression that they cause. So yeah, it's disrupting normativity, I think is a big thing for me.
Lars Peter Nissen:And I guess if you look at what the pandemic has caused of havoc over the past couple of years, that's sort of a prime example of what you're talking about.
Ksenia Chmutina:Yeah, you know, I mean, remember those conversations in March 2o2o, where everybody was shouting, how COVID is great equaliser and two years later, we're looking at Oxfam report that shows that Elon Musk increased his wealth by 1,000%, Right? Yeah.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, it's depressing to... I suppose surprising and depressing
Ksenia Chmutina:Yeah, to say the least.
Lars Peter Nissen:Now the show is called deconstructing disasters. So the obvious simple question to begin with is, what is a disaster? Who wants to take that that first easy quiz?
Ksenia Chmutina:I'll start and I'm gonna give you a really simple answer. So I actually I want to answer this question by reading a short essay by our favourite author, that Jason is share, a Dr. Galeano from his book called mirrors. And so, the piece is called "Other Natural Disasters". In eighteen seventy-nine, after three years without rain, the Indians number 9 million fewer. It is the fault of nature. "These are natural disasters", say those who now. But in India during these atrocious years, the market is more punishing than the drought. Under the law of the market, freedom oppresses. Free trade, which obliges you to sell, forbids you to eat. India is not a poor house, but colonial plantation. The markets rules. Wise is the invisible hand which makes an unmakes, and no one should dare correct it. The British government confines itself to helping a few of the moribund, dying work camps, it calls relief camps, and to demand the taxes that the peasants cannot pay. The peasants lose their land, sold for pittance, and for a pittance they sell their hands that work it, while shortages send the price of grain hoarded by merchants sky high. Exporters do a booming trade. Mountains of wheat and rice pile up on the warfs of Liverpool and London. India, starving colony, does not eat, but it feeds. The British eat, the Indians hunger. On the market, this merchandise called hunger is highly valued, since it broadens investment opportunities, reduces the cost of production and raises the price of goods." And so to me, you know, this piece is kind of the best definition of disaster because it really shows the disaster is a political process. You know, disasters do not affect everybody equally. And those who are the most marginalised, in our day to day existence, are really those who are most [inaudible] disasters. And so for the marginalised disaster, isn't the new kind of a, you know, sudden or like a shocking or unexpected danger. It's just a continuation of everyday harm. And that harm is inflicted, on those relegated on the margins of society. And so disasters to me, they do not bring suffering, they simply expose suffering. And those on the margins who already don't have a voice in decision making, you know, who can claim no official place to leave, you know, and who kind of tie their livelihood to just meagre natural resources or you know, environment that is degraded, disaster is not a unique event.
Lars Peter Nissen:So, firstly, I think it's an excellent answer, we'll give you an A plus for that one [laughing]. Secondly, my question probably is... So that's all well and good. I get it. I think we also see it when we are in the field, and we try to somehow get a humanitarian action off the ground. While I may have a bit of time to read interesting books at night, during the day, I'm quite busy trying to simply get my logframe to click, and to be driven by the humanitarian imperative, which is, I must help people who are in neede and that must be my overriding driving concern. So what is the relevance of what you've just said for me in that situation? What is your message to me?
Ksenia Chmutina:I guess, you know, to me, the message is about thinking, what is really the impact kind of a hazard, right? And what is the difference between a hazard and disaster? You know, so when you're on the ground, like, what do you do? You know, are you helping the weak (and I use quotation marks on helping the weak)? Do you realise the strength of the weak? You know, do acknowledge the strength, you know, how do you... and kind of, are you resisting disaster risk creation or are you actually a part of it? And by that I mean that... you know, of course, the immediate help is needed and this is why what humanitarians do often is important, and you know, we'll talk about this a little bit more, but what does it mean in long term, right? Are we actually reinforcing the vulnerability that's already there, the inequality that's already there, is it just kind of a bandaid? Because I just feel that you know, so much narrative around vulnerability (again, in quotation mark) and resilience (in quotation mark) you know, they become kind of labels, right? But these labels are not good. They're really, really pretty bad because they're about weakness. And I think, when you're on the ground, if you're reinforcing that weakness, right, if you label people as weak, and if you're kind of, you know, almost pointing to resilience, kind of being good. That just recreated the problem.
Jason von Meding:If I can build on that a little bit, I was just, as you were speaking, thinking about, you know, how we know a lot of people who work in humanitarian sector and have had different people on the podcast as well and practitioners more broadly, like, people... we have a lot of people that listen that are in emergency management, for sure. And so we find that there's, you know, people that really have have strong reasons why they get involved in that work and humanitarian principle and values that they're trying to live by. And I think sometimes that the compassion and the passion that they feel is very strong, and, like immediate, and it's like in the moment. And for emergency management, like, we just find a real disconnect with critique of the system, and like, really reflecting on the part that practitioners are playing in returning a system to normal. And, you know, even within our institutions, like, I'm compromised in some way in my institution, you know, because of the things that my institution stands for, and the injustices that perpetuates, but like we've talked to on the podcast before about Anyana Roy and the idea of being like a double agent when you're in a condition of empire. And I think this applies to some of our institutions, because they don't reflect all of our values... some... you might be lucky enough to have an institution which is like really perfectly aligned with you, but often we're in an institution that is doing things we don't like as well. And the other thing that came to mind there was just, like, the idea of external services or aid being provided to like the weak. So Ksenia was mentioning this idea of the way we pathologise vulnerability and the way that that definitely leads to humanitarian impulse. If we do that, if we label people weak, or needy or harmed, then it leads to humanitarian impulse, which is just human nature, I believe. But it also has some negative impacts, because it can obscure their strengths, it can obscure their capacity to help themselves and so like, like, what my message for practitioners and for myself as well, I think we can all reflect on our position as outsiders as people not experiencing the harm or experiencing in an indirect way? And I think we need to reflect on, like, are we just... What is our role? How are we destabilising the power imbalance? Because we often come in these situations with a lot of power skewed in our favour. And, you know, we can, it can it can make you feel good to be like a saviour, you know, coming in. But I think there's always time to be reflective about that, and to try to break it down and just decenter yourself. And I think that applies to researcher going into community doing doing fieldwork, or to practitioner going into to provide immediate relief.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, that really speaks to me, actually. And I think one of the big problems we have is that we think of the institutions in the humanitarian sector as the quote unquote, good guys. And I don't think they're the good guys. I also don't think they're the bad guys. I just think that they're guys. And that they have certain incentives and they behave accordingly. And so for me, I sometimes think of it we have to fall out of love with the institutions we work for, and fall back into love with the purpose we serve. That's one piece for me and the other one is the personal understanding of who you are and what you bring to the table and the extremely unhealthy position of being a saviour that sometimes can plunk into. That also really resonates with me. And I think you can see that increasingly, I think, in the humanitarian community that those discussions growing. And I think there is a stronger and stronger disconnect between that institutional stronghold that Big Aid, in a sense, has on the sector and then these new... this new thinking around localization, decolonization, whatever you want to call it, right? So I think we are in a time where that discourse is growing, but I don't see the shift in terms of behaviour.
Jason von Meding:But so...
Ksenia Chmutina:But I wonder...
Jason von Meding:You go, I want to say something else after you. You're good.
Ksenia Chmutina:Our favourite thing to do. And I just wonder, you know, reflecting on what you're saying, and... whether this is happening, that kind of disconnect is growing, right, and we're not evolving, is because our ideas of good are very, very much Western, right? They're kind of... they're informed by Christianity very much, right? They're informed by kind of enlightenment and science that is, you know, treated as as right (again, in quotation marks) in Western eyes. And that is only right science. And we don't have those discussions, you know? We do not, I think, as researchers, and I believe, as practitioners... You know, how often have you sat at the start of your career and thought: Right...so where am I standing morally? And where have my morals come from, right? How do I know what is good and what is bad? What is right and what is wrong? What informed me? And do I have an opportunity to discuss this and reflect and understand that. Actually, that's just me, right? I just, I just feel we're lacking that. And that's part of the problem.
Jason von Meding:That's way more interesting than what I had to say. I was, I was just gonna... I just had a thought that like, the way that a lot of people responding to disaster, looks to me is, is that they conceptualise what's going on as something that's, that's like sad and tragic. But you know, it happened and now we're going to deal with the consequences, we're going to try to help people. And that's fine. But a deeper critique of why it happened, will reveal that the disaster impacts are mapped across lines of oppression and inequality and injustice. And that's not natural condition for society. It didn't just happen. It was it was designed and built like this, to serve some people's interests. And so it's a hostile system, for people are being harmed by disaster, they're living in a hostile social system. And so, like the role of practitioners need to appreciate and actually become part of the struggle against that system, which is hard, like you said, when we're we're also representatives of the system, often when we come when we come in.
Lars Peter Nissen:As you're speaking, I was thinking, that makes a lot of sense to me when we're in the space of sort of natural disasters. But if you think through that line of argument in the context of a war, for example, you could argue that it is important that there are certain rules and law that we agree that that no matter who you are, you have a right to certain, you know, assistance, even if you are a quote unquote, bad guy, you still have needs, you still have rights as a human being right. And so, what we have discussed so far, for you, is that something that is predominantly, or exclusively even, in the natural disaster space, or how much do you also jump into the conflict side of things.
Ksenia Chmutina:I guess we... so you know, kind of explicitly we, and academia loves disciplines, right? We were kind... of we were like little pigeon holes in... from which we're not really allowed to, kind of, come out. And so in our disciplinary space, I guess we would be seen as disaster scholars where disaster and conflict would be separated. But I think there is broader thinking there, you know, at least for us, in that both are very much a political process, right, and the results of displacement and oppression and marginalisation, all of that, and recreation of, kind of, vulnerability and that marginalisation, is very much part of the decision or in decision making and part of the kind of power exercise. And that's... this is always at the heart of kind of what we're trying to do. And I want... what I want to emphasise is that I don't think that there are silver bullets. I don't think that there is an answer for how to reduce disaster risk, even in disaster space, right? Even just for kind of one hazard, that is never the case. And that is the whole point, right that whilst we may talk about all of disasters and conflict as very similar processes, because they expose oppression, and marginalisation, every single one of them at every different point of time, would be completely different for those exact reasons.
Jason von Meding:I think that like, for some people in the conflict space and disaster space, they'll think they're pretty far apart in terms of like theory and practice, but for the way that we analyse a disaster, the way we talk about it on the podcast, the way we write about it, I think there are way closer than you would imagine, in terms of the... because our focus is on the social condition, the material condition of people, and that actually leads to differential impacts in both of these cases. And so, yeah, we tried to go to to that level where there's actually a lot of commonality between the the injustices that people are facing.
Ksenia Chmutina:Yeah, I just want to add to this a little bit in that, because we see vulnerability as kind of... as the ground, right, to the problem, so to say, this is really important because currently vulnerability is almost used kind of to legitimise structural and physical violence, right? And so, that vulnerability is a label. It hides, right, or disguises the sort of the crimes of the powerful, right, because poor undeserving, you know, poor are kind of weak, and so that creates like a catch 22, right, where social economic political vulnerability feeds violence and and violence feeds dispossession and oppression and further marginalisation and we are forever going in this, regardless whether we're talking of a disaster or conflict.
Lars Peter Nissen:Do you think we have made any progress? I mean, you you've been been in this field for for a number of years, when you look back 10 years, 20 years, and you look at the way we manage risks, the way we think about disasters? Do you think we're making progress? And if so, what... where's the progress happening?
Ksenia Chmutina:I mean, to me, it depends on how you define progress. I guess the simple answer. [laughing] This is what happens... [inaudible]
Lars Peter Nissen:This is the last time I ever have these academics on this show.
Ksenia Chmutina:I'm really good at turning questions into questions. But no, like, seriously, right. I mean, I guess the short answer, the simple answer would be yes, right? If you look at the stats in a way that disaster risk reduction is measured, it is becoming better, right, in terms of loss of human life, for example. We've seen the actual reduction, right, in lost human life and injury. And that's kind of part COVID to decide here, right? Which is great. Loss of infrastructure as well, although the kind of the costs are growing. But this is precisely the problem. And we've been doing this piece of work with our colleagues from around the world where we looked at what is actually being measured, right? And when we talk about disaster risk, and what is being measured is what can be measured. I... vulnerability isn't really measured, because you know, how do you measure oppression? How do you measure marginalisation? How do you measure inability to kind of to... the invisibility of some people? And that that is the issue. So the progress is happening in that normative, technocratic disaster risk reduction space, but where the progress should be happening in is in space of resistance? Because really, here, you know, capitalism is a disaster. And until we make proper progress in resisting capitalism, right, in resisting kind of the power, disasters will continue to happen, right? Because it is at the heart of neoliberalism, it is at the heart of kind of capitalism, is that disasters expose, and then they're grounded in, the underlying inequalities in society, right. And neoliberalism relies on these inequalities to exist and until that happens, that disaster risk will always be there.
Lars Peter Nissen:So that's interesting. A like... while you were talking, I was thinking, So what's your sort of... What's your disaster risk reduction heaven, if you will? Forgive me, the expression. You know, Can you can we eliminate disasters, will they disappear?
Jason von Meding:Well, we will always have disasters, and again, it's it's not a it's not a concept which is easily defined or everybody agrees on, because some people will always tie this to like a natural hazard, right? But I... for the way I understand disaster is that we will always have disaster as long as we have oppression. And we'll have... our disasters will be worse, the more unequal and unjust our societies are. And like to me, are we doing any better? I don't... I think individuals like practitioners are working really hard to make it better. A lot of researchers are working hard to make it better, communities, for sure, are becoming more more attuned to why they're suffering. And we've always had resistance against the status quo and I think that's accelerating, in my my view. And I think it's at an institutional level, that there is no appetite for disrupting the way things are. And so, that's why, what I was saying earlier, I think is connected to this overall, like, move towards less risk is all of our collective action to destabilise our institutions to like, undermine our institutions sometimes, to challenge them. Because even if we're responding in a humanitarian... with humanitarian motive, we can still also be achieving institutional, like, stability, and achieving institutional longevity, when maybe the institution should die, right? Or the system should die. So like a lot of our action is also recreating the conditions that we need to displace if we're going to actually reduce risk.
Lars Peter Nissen:So I'd say it's a very radical vision you put forward and one that in many ways, I mean, I'm not far from that, right? But every time I go there, Jason, every time I start thinking like that, I also think that, My God, what would happen if we lost the institutions that are somehow trying to cling on to the last hope for multilateral action in this world? You know, and I think sometimes, those of us who are critical to the institutional setup and think we can do better and think we can have a more diverse, dynamic, creative, adaptive, humanitarian sector, maybe without going as far as you guys in terms of the radical nature of your vision, it's still... it's the fear of losing what we have that holds us back many times, to be to be totally honest with you.
Jason von Meding:I think it's likely that the institutions and systems that we are working within, you know, are never gonna give up on that because it's too scary. It's... there's too much potential for like, complete... the fear of complete collapse, and the people that are already at risk are have no have nothing to help them, right? And so I think it's like, But maybe that's gonna happen anyway. So maybe we can cling on for longer and longer, not take any serious action, and it's going to happen anyway, there's going to be a collapse.
Lars Peter Nissen:It is a difficult discussion, right? But and you can deconstruct the hell out of disasters, you still have a lot of people in this world who are at risk of dying from hunger. And as a humanitarian, that in a sense, No, you shouldn't have tunnel vision just on that. You need to think smart and so on. But that has to drive you. That has to be a strong motivator, right? And so that, for me, is the balance. And I think you're right in saying that that sometimes holds us back from really having a go at the things that obviously are not working optimally.
Jason von Meding:Well, that... coming back to like the idea of being a like a double agent and within Empire is interesting, because it's recognising that maybe you can do, you know, destroy the Empire right now. And saying like... and I think a lot of the time that's the role of the humanitarian is like, how are you going to work within that system to build relationships build the conditions for something better when the Empire collapses?
Ksenia Chmutina:It's not, you know... Audrey Lord comes to mind that, you know, the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house, you know. And we can have the best of the intentions, but the masters house will will always win.
Lars Peter Nissen:Now, we've been through a couple of really extraordinary years, it's been it's been such a strange time, and if we didn't think about crisis and risk before, at least, I think we've had ample time to do so during the pandemic, and we know that climate change is going to significantly increase the number of events we experience in the coming years. So what do you... When you think ahead to 10, 20 years, what do you think what's going to happen? How's it going to change the way we think about disasters? How's it going to change resilience in different parts of the world, that we will have a significant part of the population experiencing, being crisis affected in ways they haven't before? Also the powerful experiences. Also the very well-cushioned middle classes in first world countries or in our parts of the world, will experience some pretty unpleasant stuff, because of climate change is my thinking. How would that change things?
Ksenia Chmutina:You know judging by the kind of way that politics is unfolding all around us, right, and the kind of the power of misinformation that we're currently seeing, I'm hopeful, but not optimistic for the future. And I'll explain what that means. And, you know, so when we talk about the future that holds climate change, right, and the kind of the... or that's the present that's already called in climate breakdown, and the kind of, we know that the severity and intensity of climate induced hazards will increase, we still only talk about that, right? We still only talk about hazards. And this is the problem. This is where the future needs to kind of evolve in that (and I would have said this already, right? And that we now need to start having conversations) and accept the fact that first and foremost, disaster is in the capitalism, right? So capitalism is disaster, and most sophisticated systems that people suggested, you know, and are suggesting, that we will kind of carbon capture and storage and all that, and reflect in the sun. And it's all great, right? And I'm all up for innovation. But this kind of more sophisticated systems will not help us. Unless of course, you know, your Ayn Rand [inaudible], or, you know, Hank Rearden, I think, oh, Elon Musk, you know, if... we don't need fiction characters anymore, they have... we have real ones. And so that kind of that narrative about the future, that it will hold more kind of unprecedented, you know, shocks and unexpected events, it creates an illusion that seems real, and it you know, it's what Beuchat titled hyper normalisation, where the story and not the reality is what matters. And we are creating that story now, unfortunately. And so the story of the future that we narrating, kind of almost to ourselves, to the idea of more sophisticated systems, you know, of stronger defense systems of kind of more resilient population, it is a story of success, right? So we're talking about resilient future, because we will be able, you know... it's kind of good old man versus nature. We will be able to tame it. We will kind of fight it. It's the story of success. And it's the story where the narrative is all around us against them. But this time, of course, it's climate change, which is them. And that's the language, you know, the war against climate change, the kind of the whole avoidance of using climate breakdown in the media, right, we really want the enemy we don't want kind of the victim. And so what we hear is kind of Yes, everything is shit, you know, but there is happily ever after, because our future will, you know, we will save the world yet again. But what we don't say, though, is that, that happily ever after will actually exist for very few. And, to me, part of the future narrative, and the problem was part of the future narrative, is that the word resilience, right, that we kind of almost see as a panacea to everything, and I find that really, really problematic. You know, resilience has kind of been portrayed lately as, it'll resolve all the contemporary issues, you know. Look at how World Bank, for example, uses the word resilience, right? And it has just became such a fantastically manipulated kind of neoliberal narrative that explains absolutely everything you know, from how to cope with climate change and hazards to, kind of, to how you as an individual should act. That it it became part of our kind of mainstreaming of development, right, and our future building. And so resilience has been part of something good. And so our future is oriented toward that resilient good. So it's almost like a goal, right? And we have to achieve that no matter what. And this is where the issue is that under neoliberal conditions (that are only growing, right, it's like seven lies of neoliberalism. Why hasn't it died yet, but it's like keep keep enhancing itself), resilience can only be interpreted as really the ability to survive under the conditions of destitution. But we're not talking about it, right? And I'm going to quote Sarah Bracke, who wrote in her essay in 2016, "Bouncing Back"... she writes that resilience basically means to absorb the impact of austerity measures and continue to be productive. So it's basically, you know, what she's saying is that resilience's message for the future that we receive from our governments, from those who are most powerful, is that regardless of how oppressed you are, you should keep taking knock after knock and get better coping, but we're not going to help you. Because if you're not resilient, you're not good. And why do we need bad citizens? And of course, they use this all in a kind of very exaggerated way. Why do we need that bad city citizens, bad neighbours, you know, when they're weak, and we don't need weak, it's kind of survival of the fittest.
Lars Peter Nissen:That's a that's a very stark perspective, it's very focused on the role of capitalism, of neoliberalism and, I mean, it's... for me, it's interesting, Jason, that you live in Florida, because I believe you have capitalism over there?
Jason von Meding:[laughing] We do. Bit of fascism. Go on.
Lars Peter Nissen:And I believe that you also are probably quite vulnerable to climate change. I mean, there's a lot of coastline there and... What's the... I mean... What's the thinking in Florida? Is it... What do people think they're going to do?
Jason von Meding:There's a lot of people here, so rewind, like, 15 years, and the mood here was that climate isn't a thing, you know. The state government was saying, You can't write this in a proposal, you can't say these words, because it's not a... it's not real. And but now, like, like people who live in coastal areas are already experiencing impacts. And they like they can see in front of their eyes what's what's happening. So I think even, regardless of like... and it's always been a very public, like, based on political ideology, as well, like, the climate dialogue here. And so in Florida, for sure, there has been a shift towards, you know, even people who are more conservative to like saying, Well, what are we going to do about this? Because, like, acceptance of what's happening. And however, the danger with that is, is like connected with what Ksenia was saying, around, like, how do we respond? Do we respond by... with like, securitization? Do we respond by trying to frame it as somebody else's fault and we need to, like, build walls and, and protect our borders and you know... and that leads to increase oppression against others, it leads to othering. Because you're... you become focused on protecting what you have. And so that's, like, my big concern in a world where we have major impacts, and we have displacements, and we have places that are no longer inhabitable, is, you know, that it's just going to lead to further inequality and further oppression because, like... and we're writing about this at the moment, but like how vulnerability itself, you know, people being living in precarious situations, is intentionally made into a security issue for the privileged. You know, and that happens now. It's happened historically. But that's the concern for the future is, even when we're talking about these narratives of like an increased complexity of systems and like more risk being created, and fragility, like the response of the state and of institutions is like resilience, like we've said. It's about strengthening the status quo. It's about making sure that we don't lose what we have. And all of that is not related to justice, not related to making societies that are more interrelated and respectful and caring, it's related to being more individualistic, it's related to, you know, securing our privileges. So that's the big concern for me in these narratives is that it creates like the... it creates kind of propaganda to prepare people for, like, atrocities when they reject people co... moving, you know, reject movement, reject people's rights, because they say, "We can't afford those things anymore", you know, in the future, because we'll lose everything we have. We'll lose our civilization. So that's a big concern for me.
Lars Peter Nissen:You... this very strong link in your reasoning you have between routine capitalism, neoliberalism and the way we reproduce the same outcomes again and again. What... Who is getting it least wrong? Where... Are there any heroes in this story? Is China the good guys? I'm Scandinavian, please tell me that Denmark is doing something right. I mean, where's there something to built up?
Ksenia Chmutina:You don't defeat people who are doing it right. And I'm really sorry, Lars. You know, I'm not gonna... I'm not the government. People tried. The landless workers movements in Brazil, you know, the communities in the Philippines who are working in solidarity and who are based on kind of care and mutual aid, right? These are the women who are just kind of willing to just support each other, and others, regardless of anything, and so these are the heroes. But we're not talking about them, right? Because what they do is about collective. And the collective isn't the story that we want to tell, because that immediately, um, gives us an opportunity to think Oh, wow, okay, so if the collective works, then why aren't we a collective right? Why am I told that, as an individual, I'm much better and much more, kind of, precious, right? And all that all that. So yeah, no countries win the prize today, sorry.
Lars Peter Nissen:But we invented Lego.
Ksenia Chmutina:[laughing] Okay, fine, that you can take.
Jason von Meding:You can have a prize for that, yeah.
Lars Peter Nissen:So I... I get that point. And I think maybe let me re-ask the question, then. When you see these different social movements, where you see some hope, and you see solidarity, and you see groups of people working collectively to overcome the situation and improve it, do you see anything that can help scale that? Do you see anything in terms of connecting these different, often very localised, regionalized, the organisations... Is there any hope that we can somehow build a more powerful global force out of where you see the hope at the local level?
Ksenia Chmutina:It's a really difficult question, because I don't really believe in scaling up, right, because every single issue that we talk about here, every single opportunity, every single strength, right, and every single challenge is very context specific. And I think this is perhaps part of the problem and that this willingness to kind of to scale up... And you know, I guess going in hand with particular modernization, right, where kind of everything will be based on, kind of, collective but exactly the same. We know that it doesn't work, right? We know that it didn't work at Soviet Union, we know that it doesn't really work in China. So every... I think we just need to learn and reflect and kind of think how those sorts of initiatives and those sorts of collectives could be translated into different contexts and what it is that we already have that we can build upon.
Jason von Meding:I like that and it makes me think of like, you know, in the US, we have lots of local mutual aid organisations, community organisations, and they also form national networks and regional networks, and learn from each other, but they don't control each other, and there's no central, you know... there's no central institution that tells them all what they need to do, but they they learn from each other, they have some... a lot of the time shared principles, values, but sometimes they have different different focus. Sometimes they disagree on things and they have they have autonomy. But also they have like responsibility to each other. They... they're in relationship with each other and learn from each other. So that to me is kind of a model that works and is, like, to some degree, it can replicate. But it doesn't have that same... the problems of scale. And I would agree with Ksenia as well, though. We were always focused on scaling up things because we're attached to the idea of a nation state, we're attached to the idea of big institutions that can make everything happen and I think maybe it's because we... we're afraid of all the people that will fall through the cracks, if we have something less centralised. You know, and the people that won't be served by any organisation or any group of people, and will be left out. So I totally... it's not like there's a simple answer to this, but I see hope in the replication of community organisations. And even without organisational structure, just like people being in community with each other, and relationship with with each other locally and with their neighbours, and doing things and, you know, being self reliant, and in a in a positive way, rather than, like a bootstrapping way, you know, and helping each other because they care for each other.
Ksenia Chmutina:What worries me, though, you know... so I absolutely agree, and I want to re emphasise that it's responsibility and accountability that really kind of matters here, right, for models like this to work. But what I really don't want to happen is, because we are existing currently in the context of institutions and borders, right. And what we see very often with these kind of organisations and initiatives, is that they're then called resilient in quotation marks, right and just left to their own accord. And the kind of.... any support provided by the government through taxpayers money, right is just completely... they just don't get it anymore. And until we are in the context of institutions, until we are in the context of nations, those organisations still need to be supported no matter what. It is not their primary role, right to kind of to rebuild what the powerful have destroyed.
Jason von Meding:So like in terms of an example of that is, like, providing, like the provision of resources for local collectives that want to, you know, do provide something in the way of like food or health care, or, you know, or education. So, how much resources is a state willing to provide to people that live in a place to do the things that the state usually provides? Are you willing to give them all of your resources that you would have provided for those services? Or do you need to keep those resources and make sure that you recreate your own service system? And I think most of the time, part of part of it is not wanting to relinquish any control, wanting to make sure that your own institutions stay strong, right?
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, I mean, I'm probably a little bit more positive in terms of the possibilities of building a different support system around these local community based organisations and I sometimes think of, How can we identify, (It's a slightly provocative term) but non-humanitarian force multipliers. So non-humanitarians, the private sector, the state obviously, and get them to do the heavy lifting for what we currently as humanitarians are doing and I think that is a piece to be explored around, How do you create a an ecosystem of quite diverse quite specific capabilities, organisations maybe, but capabilities, that can that can help recreate flow or reconnect people who have been cut off from the resource they normally have access to, who find themselves in a in a crisis? How can we be much more clever around having specialised capabilities this way? I think about it there. To come in not and hand out bread, you know, to ensure that society itself recovers quicker? Does that make sense?
Jason von Meding:Well, yeah, one thing I was thinking about there, Lars, is, I was talking with my students yesterday about Wendell Berry, and if you ever read Wendell Berry, but he writes about the United States, but mostly about rural towns that have been, you know, destroyed through through corporate interests, and where... and he talks about the way that like, local business was connected to the people and the place, connected to the land, connected, you know, more deeply in a healthy way, with the community in a broad sense. And the way that the government has supported these massive corporations to dominate business and to destroy local economies is really destructive to relationships between people and relationships between them and the land, which, in rural communities in the United States, you know, people had a relationship that was like caring with the land, like small scale agriculture, and forestry, and different things, and then you have a real massive disruption because of the way that everything has been scaled up. And the corporations have got bigger and bigger, and Walmart, you know, you had these lots of times that had, you know, longevity, they had character, and then you had like, Walmart and strip malls that would go outside the town and their purpose was to suck all of the profit out of the town and basically destroy it, and make everybody they're reliant on the strip mall and the Walmart. And so, like, part of it is, how do we, like how do we attack the this... these big corporations in a way? How do we .disrupt their business and put... and push the, like, when we're talking about working with the private sector, I don't think that's that should mean working with Microsoft and Apple and Amazon. That should mean we're working with like, the local businesses in the place where you live
Lars Peter Nissen:It's interesting, I've had a guy... I've had a guest on the show called Gopi from India, he is a tour operator in India, and he works on a project called Resilient Destinations. And the idea there is that there are a number of sort of tourism dependent communities around the world, you can think Mozambique, he's from Kerala in India, the Caribbean, and they will be affected frequently by disaster and they will be out of business and they will lose most of their income. And so he has this idea, okay, so on one side, we can dual purpose tourism assets, you know, most of the lodges and whatever, they own the trucks, they have the hotels, they actually have all of the assets you need for people on the move, which are also people affected by crisis in this case. And so why don't we do our purpose our tourism assets in crisis, in sudden onset disasters, and use the tour guides as as rescue people, the hotels that as camps for displaced people, so on so forth, and that somehow also gives the tourism industry something to do while there are no tourists. And at the same time, you have this billion dollar industry, right? I mean, it I don't even... it's huge, right? It's one thousand times bigger than the humanitarian sector for example. If you can syphon just a little tiny bit of the money going through that sector off to actually covering... having them pay in a sense the full price of heating the planet by flying all of us around the world and then help get these communities their livelihood back as quickly as possible. There's a win-win-win. So it is that sort of solution where you try to, in a sense, drive value and power and money towards local ecosystems of actors who will be affected by it by crisis and then sense and try to make the big guys pay for that.
Ksenia Chmutina:Yeah, I agree with this you know, and this is exactly about kind of capacity, right? And strength. It's like what works for that... for those people, what works for that context. Because my concern with, you know, making big guys pay, I don't know if you've seen last week in the news, Jason I had a lot of kind of fun with that, that 100 millionaires signed this petition that the governments should make them pay more tax and we were like, what do you want for it? Like a metal, right? Why are you so... go and spend your money. Why do you need the government to charge you more tax and... Go give your money to people who need it. In the last two years, we've kind of seen, that there are quite a few people, right, who could really do with with a bit of kind of income redistribution. And so, my, you know, my problem here, when we talk about asking the big guy to pay is that we're almost to... you know, we're not asking them in the right way, what we do is that kind of almost charity very often, right, which simply kind of reinforces the white supremacy, it reinforces legacy of colonialism, right? So we're just, we're actually unchallenged... we're not challenging the issues that created the problem, right, in the first place. And of course, Caribbean is the great example of it. When the UK doesn't want to pay reparations to Barbados. And that's what would have helped. But instead, we just send our rich tourists, right, upper middle class. And that's how we support (in quotation mark) their economy.
Jason von Meding:Yeah, and the idea of, you know... or maybe we're asking the wrong the wrong question about like focusing on taxation rate of the wealthy. And the question should be, how does that wealth accumulate? Does it require injustice and oppressive systems to accumulate? And if so, that's where we should be focusing our attention on making sure that that's not the system that we're depending on or allowing? Because, yeah, if if we focus everything on taxation, we're basically saying that we agree with the system that allows people to become obscenely wealthy.
Lars Peter Nissen:All right, Jason and Ksenia, It's been a fantastic conversation, and we're coming towards the end of it, I think we should wrap it up by... you... I'll give you guys three wishes that you can express to me, you can say there are three things, Lars Peter, we would like you to do differently. Please change your ways in this way. And then I will do the same for you. I'll come up with three things that I would like you guys to do differently. So who goes first?
Jason von Meding:So the one that comes to mind is recognising the strength and capabilities and capacities of people who live in a place--recognising them as having... you know, re-humanising our narratives to focus on their value, rather than seeing people as needy subjects.
Lars Peter Nissen:Thank you. Let me give you my first one. Don't stare yourself so blind of the injustices of the world that you forget thinking about, How do we drive value? How do we drive resources from where they are right now to the people who really need it? I don't... don't go totally sort of structural injustice. Also look at at how can we short circuit some of the current power structures and drive some value to the people who need it?
Ksenia Chmutina:Okay, I'll think of a good second one. I'll try and articulate as well. I guess to to you, as humanitarian sector... and when you're on the ground, think about not just what's happening now, but also think about how you can maybe give hope, resistance and opportunity for resistance in a way that would be collected that would be... that would unfold in solidarity. And that would really bring people together, rather than leave them kind of fight for resources.
Lars Peter Nissen:I like that. For me, number two is don't give up on scaling this. I get it that it is nice and beautiful to see these local, authentic, communal expressions of solidarity and they are fantastic and I'm not being patronising in any way. I really mean that. I've worked among some of these communities, accompanied some of them, and I... it's the best professional experience I've ever had. Period. But we can't stop there that there has to be ways of amplifying the good that is there and making their life easier, and making it possible to scale it, and to learn across, and to build coalition of like minded people who together can be a more powerful force for change in the world.
Ksenia Chmutina:I like that.
Jason von Meding:I think connected to that is a challenge that I might make, is to be double agent within your institutions, to recognising the harm that you can do as an individual and as a representative of a powerful institution, and trying... intentionally entering a situation as a double agent trying to decenter yourself, trying to... conscious of the power, often, that you hold in a situation, sometimes being being like, a very... like a secret trader to some of the agenda of the system that you represent.
Ksenia Chmutina:That sounds like a resolution for both camps, to be honest.
Jason von Meding:It does, actually.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, and I was tempted to say, "Oh, that's mine as well", but I'll give you a different one. So mine is, we know that when we go into an operation, that we don't come out smelling like roses. We know we will make mistakes, we know we'll be criticised, we know that some of the actions we take will haunt us for years. I would like to challenge you to also have the courage to do that. It is sometimes the impeccable nature of academia. It's so perfect. Try not always to smell like roses.
Jason von Meding:That's a great challenge. And it's... we talk about this sometimes, like are we talking talking about in our current season, because we're we're working with a lot of early career researchers. And, like, I feel like Ksenia and I are pretty comfortable, you know, saying whatever, even though it might offend people in our field. But like, academia is pretty brutal for early career in terms of setting limits on what you can say and what you can do. So yeah, it's a big deal for for academics.
Lars Peter Nissen:It is for humanitarians as well. Climbing the corporate ladder in some of these bureaucracies is no easy thing and it is challenging in all the wrong ways. Ksenia and Jason, thank you so much for your time today. It's been fantastic having you on the show. I really enjoyed this conversation and I will continue listen to deconstructing disasters, because it's fun. And I think you do a fantastic piece of work. And so it's been great. Thank you so much.
Jason von Meding:Thanks, Lars. It's been really fun.
Ksenia Chmutina:Thank you so much.