The importance of theory, analysis and practice to integrated disaster research: Introduction to the Special Issue of Papers from the Second IRDR Conference

The Second Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Conference was held in Beijing, China, on the 7th to 9th of June, 2014. This event gathered a diverse international combination of researchers, policy makers, practitioners, funders and disaster risk reduction agencies, to discuss the applied integration of disaster risk research. The current special issue consists of papers with an explicitly social focus which were presented at this conference. These papers are discussed in terms of vital elements for integrated disaster risk science, namely: analysis, theory and links to practice. The special issue papers include a landmark case study of community-led disaster recovery, amongst indigenous Māori affected by the earthquakes of 2011 and 2012 in Canterbury, New Zealand. Another paper takes an international approach, to analysing the use of the term ‘disaster’ in English speaking contexts. A paper on vulnerability and response to disasters provides a detailed account of needs for disaster risk reduction in low-income countries, such as Ghana. Vulnerabilities are also explored in a paper about the challenges faced by people with disabilities during an earthquake. The special issue concludes with a thought-provoking paper on concepts of modernity, which takes an expansive and historical view of the disaster risk domain. In sum, special issue authors have produced relatively unique combinations of disaster risk analysis, theory and links to practice. This special issue therefore represents an important illustration of integrated disaster risk research.