Towards a critical technical practice in disaster risk management: Lessons from designing collaboration events
This contributing paper examines how the technical expertise of the engineering discipline as an input for risk knowledge may evolve into a 'critical' technical expertise. Despite decades of social science research into disasters, policy and practice in the field continues to be informed largely from a technical and data driven perspective. The outcome is often a perpetuation--and sometimes deepening--of vulnerability, as narrowly defined technical interventions fail to address or recognise the ethical, historical, political, institutional and structural complexities of real-world community vulnerability and its causes. The paper presents findings from three events we designed and facilitated, aimed at rethinking the engineering pedagogy and technical practice of disaster risk management.
The paper illustrates how researchers and practitioners can promote principles of interdisciplinarity, inclusivity, creativity, and reflexivity in the design processes of disaster risk management (DRM) practice. Key design elements that help operationalize the design principles include broader creativity in the use of time and resources, use of open space technology to fully empower participants, place-based activities to ground and test assumptions in real contexts, a focus on output production, and careful selection of participants to gain the benefits of interdisciplinarity and inclusivity. More intentional consideration of these principles when organizing workshops, outreach events and professional collaborations can help the DRM field shift towards a more critical technical practice.