Discourses of flood disaster preparedness by NGOs: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization

In recent years global warming and climate change due to human activity and natural phenomena, have become recognized as major contributors to the increased occurrence of flood events worldwide. Similarly, the frequency and seriousness of floods in Malaysia have made it a major threat to the coun...

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Main Authors:	Selvaraj S., Sandaran S.C.
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2019
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14100/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14100/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14100/1/36091-114067-1-PB.pdf

id	ukm-14100
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-141002020-01-31T23:08:51Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14100/ Discourses of flood disaster preparedness by NGOs: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization Selvaraj S., Sandaran S.C., In recent years global warming and climate change due to human activity and natural phenomena, have become recognized as major contributors to the increased occurrence of flood events worldwide. Similarly, the frequency and seriousness of floods in Malaysia have made it a major threat to the country. To this end, research on flood disaster has increased. Most investigations have however, focused on engineering fields, thus there is a real need for research on human activities, response and involvement. Addressing the need for research on human involvement in flood, we adopt a social constructionist perspective to investigate the discursive construction of knowledge about flood disaster preparedness by NGOs commonly involved in flood mitigation and management in Johor. We draw on the perspective that disaster discourses reveal interpretations and perceptions of ways of understanding flood disaster, and that different discourses directly shape and influence response and action for flood mitigation and management. The data consists of four in-depth semi-structured interviews with officers from various NGOs. Adopting van Leeuwen’s Critical Discourse Analytic approach, i.e. recontextualisation if social practice and representation of social actors and social action, the findings show that the members from NGOs employ various discourses such as discourses of flood causation, discourses of teamwork and humanitarian which have a direct impact on their actions/ response during the floods. More specifically, these discourses highlight more of what they do rather than the communities being helped. The study posits that the discourses not only show the positioning of the NGOs as humanitarians called on to help others, but via a discourse of victimization, they construct flood risk communities as helpless victims awaiting assistance. It advocates a change in mindset of the various parties involved in flood disaster mitigation and management in Malaysia, from that of perceiving the community as victims to survivors, thereby tapping on the communities’ resourcefulness via discourses of empowerment, communitarianism and responsibilization. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2019-11 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14100/1/36091-114067-1-PB.pdf Selvaraj S., and Sandaran S.C., (2019) Discourses of flood disaster preparedness by NGOs: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization. GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 19 (4). pp. 111-127. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1227
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	In recent years global warming and climate change due to human activity and natural phenomena, have become recognized as major contributors to the increased occurrence of flood events worldwide. Similarly, the frequency and seriousness of floods in Malaysia have made it a major threat to the country. To this end, research on flood disaster has increased. Most investigations have however, focused on engineering fields, thus there is a real need for research on human activities, response and involvement. Addressing the need for research on human involvement in flood, we adopt a social constructionist perspective to investigate the discursive construction of knowledge about flood disaster preparedness by NGOs commonly involved in flood mitigation and management in Johor. We draw on the perspective that disaster discourses reveal interpretations and perceptions of ways of understanding flood disaster, and that different discourses directly shape and influence response and action for flood mitigation and management. The data consists of four in-depth semi-structured interviews with officers from various NGOs. Adopting van Leeuwen’s Critical Discourse Analytic approach, i.e. recontextualisation if social practice and representation of social actors and social action, the findings show that the members from NGOs employ various discourses such as discourses of flood causation, discourses of teamwork and humanitarian which have a direct impact on their actions/ response during the floods. More specifically, these discourses highlight more of what they do rather than the communities being helped. The study posits that the discourses not only show the positioning of the NGOs as humanitarians called on to help others, but via a discourse of victimization, they construct flood risk communities as helpless victims awaiting assistance. It advocates a change in mindset of the various parties involved in flood disaster mitigation and management in Malaysia, from that of perceiving the community as victims to survivors, thereby tapping on the communities’ resourcefulness via discourses of empowerment, communitarianism and responsibilization.
format	Article
author	Selvaraj S., Sandaran S.C.,
spellingShingle	Selvaraj S., Sandaran S.C., Discourses of flood disaster preparedness by NGOs: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization
author_facet	Selvaraj S., Sandaran S.C.,
author_sort	Selvaraj S.,
title	Discourses of flood disaster preparedness by NGOs: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization
title_short	Discourses of flood disaster preparedness by NGOs: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization
title_full	Discourses of flood disaster preparedness by NGOs: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization
title_fullStr	Discourses of flood disaster preparedness by NGOs: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization
title_full_unstemmed	Discourses of flood disaster preparedness by NGOs: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization
title_sort	discourses of flood disaster preparedness by ngos: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization
publisher	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate	2019
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14100/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14100/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14100/1/36091-114067-1-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T20:06:20Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T20:06:20Z
_version_	1777407183568240640

Discourses of flood disaster preparedness by NGOs: humanitarian aid, teamwork and victimization

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