Purpose: Disaster Studies has emerged as an international interdisciplinary body of knowledge;
however, similarly to other academic disciplines, its terminology is predominantly Anglophone. This
paper explores the implications of translating disaster studies terminology, most often theorised in
English, into other languages and back.
Design/methodology/approach: We chose six of the most commonly used (as well as debated and
contested) terms that are prominent in academic, policy and public discourses: resilience,
vulnerability, capacity, disaster, hazard, and risk. These words were translated into 54 languages and
the meanings were articulated descriptively in cases where the translation didn’t have exactly the
same meaning as the word in English. We then analysed these meanings in order to understand
implications of disaster scholars working between dominant and “peripheral” languages.
Findings: Our findings demonstrate that many of the terms so casually used in Disaster Studies in
English do not translate easily – or at all, opening the concepts that are encoded in these terms for
further interpretation. Moreover, the terms used in disaster studies are not only conceptualised in
English but are also tied to an Anglophone approach to research. It is important to consider the
intertwined implications that the use of the terminology carries, including the creation of a
‘separate’ language; power vs. communication; and linguistic imperialism.
Originality: Understanding of the meaning (and contestation of meaning) of these terms in English
provides an insight into the power relationships between English and the other language. Given the
need to translate key concepts from English into other languages, it is important to appreciate their
cultural and ideological ‘baggage’.
History
School
Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Published in
Disaster Prevention and Management: an international journal
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Disaster Prevention and Management: an international journal and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-07-2020-0232