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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/14100/1/36091-114067-1-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14100/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1227
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spelling my-ukm.journal.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
institution Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
building Tun Sri Lanang Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
content_source UKM Journal Article Repository
url_provider http://journalarticle.ukm.my/
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/14100/1/36091-114067-1-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14100/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1227
_version_ 1657565468048752640
score 13.211869

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