Steve Matthewman

University of Auckland · Department of Sociology

This paper offers a conceptual discussion about how multilingualism can provide an unusual yet effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategy in multilingual societies. Language barriers (or disaster linguicism) in disasters can be deadly. The general approach to respond to, and solve, this issue is to disseminate disaster information in multilin...

Disaster survivors are often criticised for being dependent upon humanitarian (and development) assistance. This dependency is perceived pejoratively by government civil servants and other elites, including NGO staff. Officials offered such narratives in relation to the disaster response and recovery programmes following the Nepal Earthquake (2015)...

Mechanistic and scientific approaches to resilience assume that there is a "tipping point" at which a system can no longer absorb adversity; after this point, it is liable to collapse. Some of these perspectives, particularly those stemming from ecology and psychology, recognise that individuals and communities cannot be perpetually resilient witho...

Language can be a matter of life or death in disasters. Consequently, disaster communication, particularly relating to language barriers, has been a topic of interest. However, researchers, practitioners and policymakers tend to restrict their interests to discussions of the dissemination of disaster information in multilingual formats and/or using...

Purpose This paper aims to critically examine the post-disaster emergency response amongst marginalised and disadvantaged social groups following the 2015 Nepal Earthquake (7.8 Mw). Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research method was employed by conducting interviews with disaster survivors from marginalised and ethnic social groups, hum...

Disasters can have substantial impacts on people’s livelihoods in developing countries. Further, if the need for livelihood interventions is ignored or delayed, the crisis may trigger unexpected harmful consequences in the affected households in the aftermath. Therefore, restoring livelihoods should remain a priority in the post-disaster recovery p...

This article discusses the role of the social sciences in the time of COVID-19. The pandemic has led to a renewed appreciation of the social and with this comes the prospect for the social sciences to gain greater relevance. We note the reasons why disasters lead to an increase in sociality and the activities that social scientists are well-placed...

With contributions from leading experts in the fields of anthropology, communications, disaster studies, economics, epidemiology, Indigenous studies, philosophy and sociology, this expansive book offers a diverse range of social science perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic, providing critical insights into what a research agenda for COVID-19 and s...

Housing reconstruction is a major and critical task to be carried out in the aftermath of a disaster in developing countries. The agencies responsible for managing and implementing these programmes tend to promote the success of these interventions. Following the Bourdieusian framework, and undertaking qualitative research in the four most-affected...

Sociologists have observed the emergence of communitas following disasters for as long as there has been a sociology of the subject. Communitas refers to such phenomena as mutual help, resource sharing, community action, community spiritedness, volunteerism and humanitarianism.

The process of recovery in Ōtautahi Christchurch remains slow and problematic. Most previous research has foregrounded the city’s recovery from the Canterbury earthquake sequence, when it is in fact recovering from multiple disasters. Post-earthquakes, Cantabrians have needed to deal with waves of (sometimes related) disasters. This provides a once...

Policies, codes, standards and voluntary ‘green’ assessments have exacerbated cooling demand in New Zealand’s commercial buildings. Building codes allow designs to use single glazing on the facade, voluntary ‘green’ criteria are not higher than the legal minimum in the code and inexpensive energy for commercial buildings all contribute to an increa...

This book critically surveys a decade of disasters in Ōtautahi Christchurch. It brings together a diverse range of authors, disciplinary approaches and topics, to reckon with the events that commenced with the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence. Each contribution tackles its subject matter through the frame of Critical Disaster Studies (CDS)....

The idea of Building Back Better (BBB) has assumed the status of orthodoxy within post-disaster reconstruction. It is enshrined in the guiding principles of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. Yet, despite widespread desires to do so, cities routinely fall short of this aim. Our chapter asks the all-important question, why?...

Disaster scholars have long complained that their field is theory light: they are much better at doing and saying than analyzing. The paucity of theory doubtless reflects an understandable focus on case studies and practical solutions. Yet this works against big picture thinking. Consequently, both our comprehension of social suffering and our abil...

The Canterbury earthquakes created the biggest urban renewal project in this country's history. Consequently, our oldest city-Christchurch-is also now our newest. Though primarily a tragedy, the earthquakes provided an opportunity to 'build back better'. Amongst other things, there were aspirations to live in a smart, magnet, future-proof and post-...

Social capital discourse occupies an important place in disaster studies. Scholars have adopted various inflections of social capital to explain how those with greater social capital are generally more resilient to disasters and experience speedier recoveries. Disaster scholars have also discovered that people typically display altruistic tendencie...

The devastation of the city centre of Christchurch by the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 provided an opportunity to 'build back better' by renewing its infrastructure in a coordinated and efficient manner. This would allow for a city that is energy efficient, low carbon and resilient. This article focuses on the premier plan for the centra...

The Covid-19 pandemic presents the profoundest public health and economic crisis of our times. The seemingly impossible has happened: borders have closed, nations have locked down, and individuals have socially isolated for the collective good. We find ourselves involved in an unprecedented social experiment. This living laboratory is ripe for soci...

This paper reviews the historical research that has led to widespread policies on compact urban form, in particular, residential development, and collates evidence that demonstrates that dispersed urban form may be more energy efficient than compact form. This is counterintuitive but is supported by both challenging the conventional modelling of en...

This chapter theorises Personal Medical Devices (PMDs) as technologies and as agents in the construction of self and society. PMDs are at the forefront of technological evolution, taking on biological properties. As interactive network devices, they also connect to issues pertaining to Big Data and the sensor society, including new ways of being tr...

The energy transitions necessary to address climate change mitigation and adaptation manifest unevenly, varying in nature, context, distribution of benefits and radical depth. While populist developments and economic protectionism are often viewed pejoratively, we argue that a critical reading reveals clear connections to progressive social struggl...

Transparency International considers New Zealand the least corrupt country in the world. Yet ranking systems can flatter to deceive. This article takes a critical stance towards their global classification, which is a perceptions-based measure that ignores the private sector. In so doing, it heeds David Beetham’s (2015) call for a broader definitio...

Sociologists of disasters and those agencies dedicated to disaster risk reduction and emergency relieftend to fix disasters, to confine them in time and space. This article argues for the necessity of a mobilities turn within mainstream disaster studies, demonstrating what the new mobilities paradigm (NMP) can contribute to disaster scholarship. Di...

available: http://isa-global-dialogue.net/sociology-from-aotearoa-new-zealand-power-politics-in-post-disaster-otautahi/ On a rapidly urbanizing planet facing unprecedented wealth disparities, global warming, and the prospect of mass extinction, the question of how to live sustainably and equitably in cities assumes world-historical significance. Th...

This article explores how immigrants and refugees, who are linguistic minorities, experienced the 2010–2011 disasters in Canterbury, New Zealand and Tohoku, Japan. The focus is on their perceived social vulnerabilities and resilience to disasters. Previous research has found that linguistic minority immigrants and refugees are socially vulnerable a...

In this article we make the case for a strong program of sociological research into war, the military and their symmetry with civil society, pointing to the ways in which sociology has failed to appreciate their relationship as a central feature of modernity. We particularly emphasize the need for a multi-dimensional comprehension of militarization...

This sociological study explores how immigrants and refugees, many of whom are linguistic minorities, experienced the 2010-2011 disasters in Canterbury (New Zealand) and Tohoku (Japan). The focus is on their perceived social vulnerabilities and resilience to disasters. Previous research has found that linguistic minority immigrants and refugees are...

Disasters are part of the modern condition, a source of physical anxiety and existential angst, and they are increasing in frequency, cost and severity. Drawing on both disaster research and social theory, this book offers a critical examination of their causes, consequences and future avoidance.

Disasters are part of the modern condition, a source of physical anxiety and existential angst, and they are increasing in frequency, cost and severity. Drawing on both disaster research and social theory, this book offers a critical examination of their causes, consequences and future avoidance.

Timing is everything. In the mid-1980s Ulrich Beck was working on the manuscript Risk Society (Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne). It was written against the backdrop of protests between anti-nuclear campaigners and authorities over a proposed nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf, Bavaria. Three terrible things happen...

There are two rather obvious reasons why sociologists should be interested in disasters. The first is to interpret the world. Given their increasing magnitude and severity, disasters are an integral part of social reality. As the UN secretary Ban Ki-moon said, we are ‘living in an era of an unprecedented level of crises’ (quoted in Borger, 2014, p....

The previous chapter addressed the question: why should sociologists study disasters? Two connected reasons came to the fore: to aid the enterprise of sociology and to assist with our comprehension of social reality. We noted how disasters lift veils. Here we offer an extended meditation on this theme of disasters and revelation. It is one of the l...

In this chapter and the next we take stock of our own disastrous times, which in some respects are record-breakingly bad. We face a new normal in which the impossible happens, ‘over here’ as well as ‘over there’. Salient themes are identified, centring on the increasing pace, complexity and interconnectivity of contemporary existence. Here, automat...

As we noted in our introduction, and again in Chapter 5, disasters incorporate different agents, scales, velocities, intensities and temporalities. This means that when we come to ‘locate’ disasters we need to be mindful of a number of causal agents. Disasters can come from outside of society due to the awesome power of nature (Clark, 2011). They c...

Capitalism certainly deserves praise. It has produced great cities and hitherto unknown, and undreamt of, productive capacities, making possible endless scientific and artistic achievements besides. In broad historical terms it has had a profound civilizing effect through its revolutionizing of the means of communication and through its globalizati...

We began by considering the contributions that disaster research can make to sociology and social theory. Here we bring social theory to bear on disasters. Social theory has announced a series of ends: the end of the Enlightenment project, the end of history, the end of nature. Now we are faced with the biggest end of all: the end of everything, th...

Sociologists have long understood history as something more than the triumph of collective will or the rule of great men or ideas. A recurring theme throughout the history of sociological thought since its inception is that of the unintended consequences of social action. Marx’s focus on dialectics and contradictions is seen to be evidence of an in...

Science and technology are often offered as the source of society’s salvation, yet a generation of sociological work on risk seems to reverse this stance. Science and its technological application are positioned as today’s greatest sources of ruination. Put differently, our biggest threats and gravest disasters seem to be internal to society itself...

Blackouts that cause disruption to millions of people are a growing threat to society

Electricity fuels our existence. It powers water purification, waste, food, transportation and communication systems. Modern social life is impossible to imagine without it. This article looks at what happens when the power goes off. It scrutinises the causes and consequences of accidental electrical power cuts. It begins by identifying the reasons...

While Michel Foucault’s significance as a social theorist is undisputed, his importance as a technological theorist is frequently overlooked. This article considers the richness and the range of Foucault’s technological thinking by surveying his works and interviews, and by tracking his influence in Surveillance Studies and Actor-Network Theory (AN...

This article surveys the work of one of the most prominent theorists of accidents today, Paul Virilio. Particular focus is given to the May 6, 2010, Flash Crash. This event is used to measure the worth of Virilio’s accidentology, as it is viewed as a harbinger of the integral accident, a catastrophic incident that is experienced simultaneously and...

This chapter explores renewable energy governance in the context of New Zealand’s “energy culture”. New Zealand enjoys an international reputation as being a clean and green country. Yet surface appearances can be deceptive. Image frequently trumps reality. The green label is largely an exercise in branding (the country is the latest recipient of t...

While Michel Foucault's significance as a social theorist is undisputed, his importance as a technological theorist is frequently overlooked. This article considers the richness and the range of Foucault's technological thinking by surveying his works and interviews, and by tracking his influence within Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The argument is m...

While Michel Foucault’s significance as a social theorist is undisputed, his importance as a technological theorist is frequently overlooked. This article considers the richness and the range of Foucault’s technological thinking by surveying his works and interviews, and by tracking his influence within Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The argument is m...

This article is intended as a contribution to the embryonic sociology of energy and infrastructure. To do so it focuses on New Zealand (and one policy in particular – Warm Up New Zealand), but it also makes connections to relevant issues and literatures across the globe. The article looks at the research currently being undertaken on the long- term...

Some things never made it into the 21st century. Postmodern social theory seems to be one of them. In this article we ask the all important questions: what was it and what happened to it? We argue that postmodernism existed in the plural and in many of its forms as proxy. Postmodernism was always a term of convenience for critics, and paradoxically...

This paper considers those things that Zygmunt Bauman called "modernity's extreme spirit": genocide, state terror and the like. They are made possible by modern techniques of organization and production, namely bureaucracy and industry, and as the outcomes of purposive collective action they are, at least in principle, sociologically explainable. T...

This article analyses impacts of the Performance-Based Research Fund that was established in 2003. The fund encourages the entrepreneurial or "managed" university (Becher and Trowler, 2001). Of particular concern to academics is the character of 'the HR challenge' (Walsh, 2004). The article also assesses a survey of academics in the humanities and...

Journal of World History 13.1 (2002) 186-189 One always needs to be wary of publisher's claims, and the jacket of this publication proves no exception. Fagan's work is heralded as a "dazzlingly new book [that] shows that short-term climate shifts have been a major -- and hitherto unrecognized -- force in history." Readers with only a passing awaren...

This paper examines two phases of South African weather-modification: hail-suppression (1971–1981), and rainfall augmentation (from 1981 onwards). Both methods have precipitated a number of public panics in which clashes between scientific expertise and social experience were clearly discerned. It is argued that planned weather-modification illustr...

This seminar considers the shifting contours of Pākehā ethnicity. In exploring this we wish to foreground the significance of mimicry and memory. We begin by examining the ways in which Pākehā ethnicity troubles sociological theory. We then proceed to examine the ways in which this ethnicity works out in practice. During the 1980s one claimed Pākeh...

Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access. This thesis is organised around two questions: how do we explain planned weather-modification's shifting scientific status, and how do we explain public opposition to weather-modification programmes? The last four decades have seen weather-modification osc...