ABSTRACT
Knowledge saves lives. This is the premise of the Hyogo Framework for Action’s (HFA) call to governments to integrate the learning of disaster risk reduction (DRR) in every country’s education system. On the type of knowledge that should be taught, the literature indicates a divide between the optimists, the cynics and the realists in their regard to the efficacy of knowledge for DRR. From the perspective of educators, issues raised are on the sparseness of coverage in the curriculum of specific subjects, lack of issues-based discussions, and inattention to the need to address the knowledge-behaviour gap. DRR researchers in education are pushing for indigenous knowledge/s to be given room and emphasis on a predominantly techno-scientific, discipline-bound approach to education delivery. In this article, I argue from a postcolonial perspective that as hazards and related disasters are necessarily context-determined, DRR researchers and educators should be wary of inherent limitations in their respective disciplinary silos and be critical of mainstream epistemologies that create artificial knowledge compartments, expediently ignoring the applicability of (re)presented information to a place, its geography and its people. DRR as a subset of sustainability education should transcend the ethno- and discipline-centric approaches in research and practice, refuse the essentialist views about place-based knowledge and work towards fostering an educational encounter that empowers the learner, the teacher and their communities in adapting to life punctuated by hazards and disasters.
