Abstract
Disaster governance encompasses the responsibility and management of disaster mitigation, relief and recovery as well as power and politics around these areas of action. Research on disaster governance focuses on various scales of action when examining the implications of disaster governance frameworks for particular populations and there is growing scholarship on the impacts that national politics and programmes have on local efforts. Under-represented in these discussions is an engagement with the relationality of disaster governance <em>within</em> national boundaries, not just vertically (i.e., the local in relation to the national) but horizontally—the local in relation to other locals. Through an examination of Ladakh in relation to neighbouring Kashmir, this article shows how local efforts to enhance disaster governance have been stymied both by the vertical (local-centre) politics of border security and conflict, as well as by the material effects that politics and violence in neighbouring Kashmir Valley have on Ladakh.
Highlights
Disaster governance encompasses disaster risk reduction (DRR), mitigation, emergency response and recovery as well as knowledge production around these areas of action (Tierney, 2012)
The first examined disaster resilience and governance in Ladakh and included 12 interviews with key figures linked to disaster governance through their leadership roles in disaster management and/or civil society: the -Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Leh, the -Chief Executive Councillor of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council Kargil, two government officials from tourism in Leh and education in Kargil, two researchers that worked on the 2010 Leh District Disaster Management Plan and efforts to revise it, two leaders from local Muslim and Buddhist faith associations in Leh, three local NGOs’ workers in Leh, and a journalist-activist in Kargil
While disaster governance literature explores how local contexts are affected by national and international power and politics, less explored is how local contexts can be affected by power and politics in neighbouring locales
Summary
Disaster governance encompasses disaster risk reduction (DRR), mitigation, emergency response and recovery as well as knowledge production around these areas of action (Tierney, 2012). It is hoped that the lens of relationality can be applied in other contexts— in situations of internal conflict, where conflict politics in one locale may spill over to affect the disaster risk and governance situation of a neighbouring area, even when the violence itself does not extend across internal boundaries With this conflict backdrop, I hope to contribute to discussions on the conflict-disaster nexus (Hilhorst, 2013; Hilhorst et al, 2019; Siddiqi, 2018; Venugopal & Yasir, 2017; Walch, 2014), through highlighting new ways that conflict dynamics can contribute to hazard vulnerability.
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