The International Network of Disaster Studies is seeking proposals for papers to be presented at its second conference, to be held in Morioka, Japan, from July 17-19, 2018. The first conference was held in Haikou, China, in January 2017, which was initiated by the Center for Crisis Management Research at Tsinghua University and Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance Innovation.
Topics proposed should be broadly consistent with the conference theme, Landscape-Scale Disasters, Emergency Response, and Regional Recovery.
The conference welcomes contributions on emergency events or potential crises which threaten or affect societal resilience in large geographic areas. These include (but are not limited to) natural disasters, slow-onset crises, infrastructure or technology failures, epidemics, civil conflicts, and refugee flows. We invite proposals for panels, papers, or presentations that address prevention, risk reduction, and mitigation; domestic preparedness and emergency response; international humanitarian relief to survivors and affected communities; and recovery efforts in in neighborhoods, sub-national regions, or cross-national areas. Proposals for worthy topics that fall outside of the theme areas will also be considered.
Proposals should include:
· A brief paper topic/title
· An abstract of approximately 350-500 words
· 3-4 key words
· Name(s) of proposers
· Their positions and institutional affiliations
· Email addresses and other contact information
Researchers should submit their proposals by February 1, 2018. Proposers will be notified by March 15, 2018 whether their topics have been selected either for presentation on panels or for poster sessions.
Because of the broad international participation expected at the conference, proposals and papers should be submitted in English.
Completed papers should be approximately 3500-5000 words.
Papers will be due by June 20, 2018, in order to be included in the proceedings to be distributed to conference attendees.
After the conference, the organizers expect to edit a collection of papers for publication as a special issue of a journal or as a book.
Dear Colleague:
We are pleased to announce the second conference of the International Network of Disaster Studies.
Iwate University, has generously committed to host this conference from July 17-19, 2018, in its home city of Morioka, Japan. (Morioka is located about two hours north of Tokyo by high-speed train connection.) The conference theme will be Landscape-Scale Disasters, Humanitarian Response, and Regional Recovery. A “call for papers” accompanies this letter.
During the conference, there will be multiple panels at which papers will be presented and discussed, as well as ample opportunity for informal dialogue among participants. The conference will include an optional field trip on July 19-20 to the City of Rikuzentakata, on the coast of Iwate prefecture, to see the remarkable recovery that city has engineered in the aftermath of the devastating tsunami after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. (Further information about conference arrangements will be forthcoming.)
The International Network of Disaster Studies is not a formal organization but simply a loose association of university faculty and other senior researchers who get together to exchange ideas and discuss issues of mutual interest. At the initial conference in Haikou, China, in January 2017, participants came from more than a dozen countries.
For the future, the network will seek to expand its reach to researchers from other countries; and we hope that over time the conferences will rotate among countries and continents. We also hope to expand the scope of research interests represented among conference participants. We will actively seek people interested not only in emergency response and risk governance but also in humanitarian assistance and regional disaster recovery. We hope to have researchers from various social science disciplines and other professional fields related to our subject areas.
If you know other faculty or senior researchers who you think would be interested, please forward this letter, or send us their names, affiliation, and contact information so we can let them know about the conference.
We look forward to seeing you in Morioka, Japan, next July.
Best regards,
Masaaki Minami, Professor and Director, Center for Regional Disaster Management, Iwate University, Japan
Xue Lan, Professor and Dean, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, China
Arnold Howitt, Co-Director, Program on Crisis Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School, USA
Arjen Boin, Professor of Public Institutions and Governance, Leiden University, the Netherlands
