Ben Wisner

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the role of local institutions and differentiated rural populations in climate change adaptation in Tanzania and found that the dominant policy discourse constructs an anti-politics of adaptation through its framing of climate change as an urgent and generalized threat to development.

TL;DR: In the context of the 2009 special issue of the Journal of Religion, the authors in this paper have identified three sets of questions one can ask about faith, faith communities, and disaster, and these questions indicate possible directions activism and practice may take in order to reduce the human, economic, and environmental cost of natural hazard impacts.

TL;DR: In this paper, a set of questions about small African cities and towns facing climate change are addressed, such as: What climate-related hazards are faced by small cities in Africa today and will be confronted in the future? What kind of enabling capacities should be strengthened so that staff in small cities can take the initiative to adapt to climate change? What obstacles do the governments and residents of small cities face in adapting to climate changes? What potential is there for risk reduction and improved livelihood security even in the face of climate change.

TL;DR: There are obstacles to overcome in generating hybrid local knowledge, including the assumed superiority of urban or high culture versus rural, vernacular or low culture and the frequent use of science as justification to force rural people to do what governments want.

TL;DR: The theme issue of Jamba as mentioned in this paper takes up the question of neglected disasters, which is an important topic because the world is changing, disasters are changing, and theory is changing; all these changes call for a re-assessment of why some human suffering and social disruption receive attention from authorities, donors, researchers and the media, while some does not.