Disasters: Deconstructed Podcast

Episode overview

Hosts

Jason von Meding

Ksenia Chmutina

Guests

A.J. Faas — anthropologist and disaster scholar

J.C. Gaillard — geographer and disaster researcher

Key themes

Why disaster studies must continually read beyond itself

Theory as a way to unsettle settled ideas, not as abstraction for its own sake

Eclecticism, curiosity, and “thinking with” rather than “thinking about” communities

The limits of normative frameworks (e.g., vulnerability, “no natural disasters”)

How critical theory informs practice, not just scholarship

The importance of non-Anglophone, non-Western, and untranslated bodies of thought

Creating intellectual space for early-career researchers to take theoretical risks

Core discussion highlights

Introduction to Contemplating Catastrophe, a collection of short essays on thinkers who shape disaster thinking indirectly—philosophers, artists, theorists, and writers outside the field.

A.J. Faas discusses reading across philosophy, literature, anthropology, and history to keep thought “lively,” and reflects on how Gramsci and Santiago Castro-Gómez help disaster scholars rethink power, hegemony, and relationality.

J.C. Gaillard reflects on frustration with disaster practice as a driver for engaging critical theory, particularly Foucault, and argues that theory liberates practice rather than distracting from it.

Shared concern that dominant concepts can silence alternative ontologies and lived realities if left unexamined.

A collective call to broaden disaster scholarship beyond Euro-American traditions and to value thinkers writing in other languages and contexts.

Season 10 structure

Live episodes recorded through 2025, archived on our Youtube channel!

Thematic episodes planned on feminism, urbanism, anarchism, Black power, Latin American and Caribbean thought, East and Southeast Asian intellectual traditions, and Eastern philosophies.

Sajag-Nepal's "Notes from the Field" is a three-episode podcast for "Disasters: Deconstructed" This special episode will introduce listeners to the work and scope of the "Sajag-Nepal: Planning and Preparedness for the Mountain Hazard and Risk Chain in Nepal" project. Most importantly it will explore Sajag-Nepal project’s approaches to interdisciplinary and intercultural research on multi-hazards and risk chains in Nepal. 

In our final episode (of 3) we will focus on Slope Monitoring Equipment, which aims to study slope movement. Additionally, we will engage in discussions with community members from Bhotekoshi to better understand their perspectives on slope movement. The goal of this episode is to facilitate a dialogue between scientific knowledge and community insights regarding slope movement. 

We hope you enjoy the discussion!  

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon

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Hosts: Nyima Dorjee Bhotia, Dipak Basnet, Anuradha Puri & Tek Bahadur Dong  

Speakers: Dr. Megh Raj Dhital, Dr. Nick Rosser, Dr. Mukta Lama, Ramesh Shrestha (PhD student at Geography Department, Durham University, UK) the participants from Marming workshop, Bhotekoshi, Sindhupalchowk

Translation of the Nepal folk song 

The landslide occurs every year. 

What is the government doing?  

We are worried- where to go,  

What to eat, what to wear.  

Landslides bring sorrow. 

While the government watches, 

landslides have increased.  

We are worried- where to go,  

What to eat, what to wear. 

 Acknowledgement  

We would like to thank the people of Marmin in Bhote Kosi Rural Municipality who kindly participated in our workshop and who gave their time to be interviewed for our project and the podcast. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. 

We also acknowledge our colleagues at Social Science Baha for their time to give a voice over in the Nepali interview recording  

Prasansa Thapa 

Sujit Maharjan 

Rajib Neupane 

Sanjit Shrestha 

Sachin Karki 

Sakar Sapkota 

Further Info:

Sajag-Nepal: Twitter, project website 

Social Science Baha: Website, Twitter  

Sajag-Nepal project film produced by BBC Media Action (Film on Phagam) 

Sajag-Nepal's "Notes from the Field" is a three-episode podcast for "Disasters: Deconstructed" This special episode will introduce listeners to the work and scope of the "Sajag-Nepal: Planning and Preparedness for the Mountain Hazard and Risk Chain in Nepal" project. Most importantly it will explore Sajag-Nepal project’s approaches to interdisciplinary and intercultural research on multi-hazards and risk chains in Nepal. 

Welcome to Episode 2 (of 3), where we will explore the understanding of multi-hazards from the perspectives of both the local community and scientists. To do this, we will take the episode to Temal and engage in conversations with local community members to gain insights into their understanding of hazards/multi-hazards. Additionally, we will interview anthropologist Mukta Tamang, geographer Gopi Basyal and geologist Megh Dhital on the topic. 

We hope you enjoy the discussion!  

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon

Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! 

Hosts:Tek Bahadur Dong, Anuradha Puri, Nyima Dorjee Bhotia, Dipak Basnet,

Speakers: Prof. Megh Raj Dhital, Dr. Gopi Krishna Basyal, and Dr. Mukta Singh Lama  

Further Info:

Sajag-Nepal: Twitter, project website 

Social Science Baha: Website, Twitter  

Sajag-Nepal project film produced by BBC Media Action (Film on Phagam) 

NSET: Website 

Sajag-Nepal's "Notes from the Field" is a three-episode podcast for "Disasters: Deconstructed" This special episode will introduce listeners to the work and scope of the "Sajag-Nepal: Planning and Preparedness for the Mountain Hazard and Risk Chain in Nepal" project. Most importantly it will explore Sajag-Nepal project’s approaches to interdisciplinary and intercultural research on multi-hazards and risk chains in Nepal. 

In the first episode, we discuss cascading hazards in Nepal, with a focus on earthquakes and monsoon-triggered hazards like landslides. This episode will center around the project’s approaches to interdisciplinary and intercultural research. 

We hope you enjoy the discussion!  

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon

Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! 

Hosts: Nyima Dorjee Bhotia, Dipak Basnet, Anuradha Puri & Tek Bahadur Dong  

Speakers: Dr. Katie Oven, Dr. Amy Johnson, and Dr. Jeevan Baniya 

Further Info:

Sajag-Nepal: Twitter, project website 

Social Science Baha: Website, Twitter  

Sajag-Nepal project film produced by BBC Media Action (Film on Phagam) 

Welcome to the final part of our Disasters: Deconstructed mini-series from Fishlake, UK! Thank you so much to Dave Angel for producing this wonderful local artifact, and sharing his creative process with us. I hope you all are inspired as much as we are!! 

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon

Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! 

Further information:

Dave Angel’s contact: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-angel-5444a6226/

Loughborough HOME CDT doctoral research project

https://meaningofhome.uk/

The Meaning of Home CDT Podcast: our monthly podcast on the subject of home

https://meaningofhome.uk/podcast/

We are back with Dave Angel for the second episode of our Disasters: Deconstructed mini-series from Fishlake, UK. Thanks for joining us! 

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon

Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! 

Further information:

Dave Angel’s contact: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-angel-5444a6226/

Loughborough HOME CDT doctoral research project

https://meaningofhome.uk/

The Meaning of Home CDT Podcast: our monthly podcast on the subject of home

https://meaningofhome.uk/podcast/

Welcome to the first episode of our Disasters: Deconstructed mini-series from Fishlake, UK. Your host for this series is Dave Angel, a musician-composer who has spent most of his life in the area. The series draws on his PhD work "‘Effing Awful!’: Deep, Dirty, Dangerous Water. Developing an audio representational method to develop empathy around post-flood experiences in two South Yorkshire villages." Over to Dave for the mini-series! 

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon

Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! 

Further information:

Dave Angel’s contact: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-angel-5444a6226/

Loughborough HOME CDT doctoral research project

https://meaningofhome.uk/

The Meaning of Home CDT Podcast: our monthly podcast on the subject of home

https://meaningofhome.uk/podcast/

Happy New Year and welcome back for Season 9 of Disasters: Deconstructed!!!  We can't wait to spend time with you again - or for the first time - as we explore why disasters really happen. 

This season we will be exploring local stories through 3 mini-series from around the world. Tune in to hear more about what we have in store :)

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon

Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! 

Music this week from "Thinking of You" by Oliver Michael. 

We really appreciate you all tuning in for Season 8 of Disasters: Deconstructed! In this Season Wrap we look back at some of the best bits from our discussions and the key themes emerging. Join us again in a few months for Season 9 when we concentrate on local stories from communities living with risk around the world 

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon

Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! 

Music this week from "Continent" by AMBR. 

Thanks everyone for joining us this season! We have really enjoyed speaking with our incredible guests who taught us about solidarity from so many angles. This is our penultimate episode, and we are super excited to spend it with our season 4 co-host, Darien Alexander Williams!

Since he was last on the podcast, Darien completed his doctorate and is an incoming Assistant Prof. at Boston University. As many of you know, he is an urban planner who studies Blackness, Islam and disaster. Being an active part of community in Boston is a priority for him, and we are so glad he joined us to discuss the complicated space of scholar activism.

Thanks for listening! 

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @DisastersDecon

Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! 

Further information:

Queer Muslims of Boston

Our guests:

Darien Alexander Williams (@nigreaux)

Music this week from "chimera soldiers" by Max H.