Centrifugal Disasters: Trajectories of Vulnerability, Recovery and Resilience

This book focuses on centrifugal disasters that impact a group of seemingly unconnected people congregated temporarily often by chance, unlike centripetal disasters that strike an extant community of people. In India as well as in South Asia, centrifugal disasters have increased significantly in the last few decades; however, the research remains limited as such incidents are often categorized as accidents. The book documents three such major disaster events–– the 26/11 terror attacks and the 13/7 blasts in Mumbai and the hospital fire in Kolkata–– and analyzes the lived and felt experiences of the survivors and their families.

Drawing on the authors’ experience of working with survivors, first responders (police, health workers), as well as policymakers, the book suggests a model of disaster intervention that bridges academia and praxis expertise. Besides providing a rights framework for disaster interventions, it also explores the moral and ethical considerations around disaster interventions.

This important book will be of interest to students and practitioners of disaster management, including first responders and those working in public management, risk management, hazards and disasters, emergency response, terrorism, and political violence. It will also be useful to mental health professionals, social workers, psychologists, civil society organizations, as well as bureaucrats and policymakers.

Jacquleen Joseph is Professor and Dean at the Jamsetji Tata School of Disaster Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, India. She has a postgraduate degree in Social Work, followed by an MPhil and a PhD in Psychiatric Social Work from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), India. She has been associated with JTSDS since its inception. Her research, field action, and teaching centre around psychosocial care and support in disaster and humanitarian contexts. She is actively engaged in long-term research and field action in the psychosocial domain in several disasters, starting with Tsunami 2004 to that of the recent Nepal Earthquake 2015 and COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the recent research and mobility grants in her areas of research interest are the Disaster Resilience Leadership Research and Fellowship Project (BMG research grants 2017–19), Transboundary Water Governance and Capacity Building for Civic Engagement (ICIMOD – HUC Research Networking Grant, 2021), and Disaster Risk Creation in Urban Resettlement Processes (Independent Research Fund Denmark – 2021–25), among others. Orcid ID: 0000-0001-9771-0604

Surinder Jaswal is Professor of Social Work at the Centre of Health and Mental Health, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She is the former Deputy Director and Dean Research and Development at TISS. Prof Jaswal is a social work educator and public health researcher focusing on inequality and human development issues in health and mental health. She has researched and published extensively in the area of public health and mental health with a focus on health inequity, women’s health and disasters, psychosocial issues in disasters, and social work education. She has initiated and anchored several field action projects on community health, women’s health, and disasters. She serves on several scientific and advisory committees of the Government of India, different universities, health research networks, and civil society organizations globally and within the country. She has a postgraduate degree in Social Work from TISS, and a doctorate in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, London University. She was awarded the Commonwealth Scholarship for doctoral studies and was in the first cohort to be awarded the Yusuf Hameid Fellowship in Public Health from Columbia University. Orcid ID: 0000-0003-0161-5202