Isabelle Desportes | Associated Researcher

Environment, climate, energy: Societies and their ecological challenges
Centre Marc Bloch, Friedrichstraße 191, D-10117 Berlin
Email: isabelle.desportes  ( at )  cmb.hu-berlin.de Tel: +49(0) 30 / 20 93 70700

Home Institution : Freie Universität Berlin | Position : Associate Researcher | Disciplines : Political Science , Geography |

Biography

As geographer who progressively shifted towards political science, I research the politics of disaster creation, prevention and response. My PhD focused on humanitarian governance surrounding droughts and floods in authoritarian conflict-affected settings, with fieldwork conducted in Ethiopia, Myanmar and Zimbabwe. Currently, I work with (geo)scientists and practitioners involved in improving the Indonesian tsunami warning system and study the processes and power dynamics at play when conducting international, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary disaster research. Broader research interests encompass depoliticisation, civil society mobilisation, the role disasters can play in socio-ecological transitions, and violence that is exerted in 'subtle' ways.

Past academic but also non-academic work stations have been the Universities of Amsterdam and Cape Town, the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, the International Federation of the Red Cross Red Crescent in Geneva and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.

Researchtopic

Climate Politics; Conflict Studies; Disaster Studies; Humanitarian Governance

Title of thesis
Repression Without Resistance: Disaster Responses in Authoritarian Low-Intensity Conflict Settings
Summary of thesis

In my PhD thesis, I investigated how state, civil society and international humanitarian actors engage with the politics of disaster response, and with which implications. My research focused particularly on disasters unfolding in authoritarian low-intensity conflict settings.

My findings suggest that, in such a context, disaster responders engage with the politics of disaster in four major ways:

  1.  The state instrumentalizes disaster response to further political goals in the interests of a few.
  2. State and non-state disaster response actors fear the politics of disaster response, afraid particularly of being framed as having ulterior political motives.
  3. Non-state disaster response actors prefer to socially navigate around or conceal politically sensitive issues, rather than to openly confront them.
  4. There are indications that non-state actors tend to ‘internalize’ a depoliticized approach. Depoliticization efforts do not always come across as being strategically reflected upon.

The thesis identifies the potentially far-reaching implications of depoliticizing disaster response, impacting people’s physical and psychological well-being, social cohesion within and beyond communities, state–aid–society relations and power balances, and the way in which humanitarian operations can be carried out in the future. Systematically depoliticizing disaster response has profound ethical and practical implications; it ultimately constitutes another engagement with politics.

Projects

2021-2024: 'TsunamiRisk: Multi-risk assessment and cascade effect analysis in cooperation between Indonesia and Germany - Joint research on tsunamis induced by volcanoes and landslides', funded by the German Ministry of Research BMBF

2016-2020: 'When Disaster meets Conflict', funded by the Dutch Research Council NWO

2013: 'Flooding in Cape Town under Climate Risk', funded by the British and the Canadian International Development Research Centre IDRC

The politics of disaster creation, prevention and response

My research approaches disasters such as deadly floods or wildfires as socio-politically constructed and as symptoms of our currently unsustainable societies. It specifically deals with how various actors materially and discursively draw back on disasters to advance their own agenda - for instance, through the (depoliticised) framing of disaster root causes and solutions. I am particularly intrigued by the puzzle of why disasters currently do not play a more substantial role in bringing forward socio-ecological transformation processes.
Publications

Book and special issue editorships

Peer-reviewed book chapters and journal articles

  • Desportes, I. (in press). ‘Theories of power: Disaster paradigms and what they aim to stifle’. In Principles and Concepts of Disaster Risks, Vol.1., edited by I. Kelman. New York: Springer.

Blogs and newspaper editorials

Selected publications for policy and practitioner audiences

  • Desportes, I. Dalimunthe, S.A. Surtiari, G.A.K. and Reksa, A.F.A. [in press]. Applying a ‘cascading disasters’ approach across silos and epistemic cultures? The challenge of warning of non-seismically induced tsunamis in Indonesia. Words into Action Series on Science and Policy. Geneva: United Nations for Disaster Risk Reduction.
  • Desportes, I. & Voss, M. (2023). Kurzstudie über die Kommunikation des Auswärtigen Amts und ausgewählter westlicher Geberländer zum Thema humanitärer Hilfe (Bericht nicht öffentlich). Berlin: Akademie der Katastrophenforschungstelle.
  • Hilhorst, D., van Voorst, R., Mena, R., Desportes, I. & Melis, S. (2019). Disaster Response and Humanitarian Aid in Different Conflict Scenarios. Geneva: United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.
  • Desportes, I. (2015). Partners for Resilience in Ethiopia, Country Case for the Qualitative Process and Impact Study. Groningen: University of Groningen.

Doctoral and Master thesis