Inequality, uncertainty, and vulnerability: Rethinking governance from a disaster justice perspective

In conceptualizing and addressing problems of risk society, significant strands of theorization address key problems of modernity in the anthropocene world focusing on issues of science, technocracy, reflexivity, social organization, conflict and the environmental impact of our production and distribution systems. However, classical problems of inequality, social justice and an all-pervasive uncertainty affecting vulnerable populations are inadequately incorporated into such strands. Drawing from long-term research on flood-related disasters in the city of Mumbai and ongoing research on climate uncertainty and the impacts of new coastal claims on socio-environmental systems in India, this article argues for a reconceptualization of justice and governance from a disaster risk reduction perspective. A range of ongoing empirical and analytical work from Asia and beyond are referenced while deploying and advancing insights from research in the areas of environmental justice, feminist theorizations of justice and key Indian contributions on niti and nyaya – the distinction between appropriate social and organization arrangements for ensuring justice, and the actual state of realization of justice. In addressing disasters in an anthropocene world, it is argued that the most vulnerable are also subjected to the most abject living conditions that make them vulnerable to disasters and exclude them from forms of disaster justice; such exclusions derive from highly unequal social and political arrangements that in turn define governance in general and governance for disaster mitigation in particular; they contribute to cascading uncertainties and vulnerabilities, exacerbate existing inequalities and processes of marginalization and pose questions for how we define and make a case for disaster justice. A case is made for a more integrated approach to disaster justice that does not neglect problems of power, discrimination or diversity in governing disasters