ABSTRACT
Programs in disaster management have turned to community participation as a way to strengthen the agency of affected populations given the increasing scale, complexity, and unpredictability of disasters. Advocates of community participation acknowledge that the approach can be fraught with contestation. However, why and how conflict unfolds in participatory projects remains under examined. This chapter critically reflects upon the knowledge controversies that characterized an independent consultancy firm’s project (in partnership with government and civil organizations) in disaster recovery that were anchored in certain notions of “design thinking.” Specifically, this chapter investigates how popularized design thinking, as a form of knowledge production deployed to foster community participation, may contribute to disaster management through provoking contestations of knowledge that “force thought” and “slow down reason.” In turn, these provocations may illuminate worlds previously deemed as inconsequential; they may also unfold new political orientations and new ways of becoming. This chapter, therefore, contributes to the limited but growing interest in framing disaster management as a locus of participatory design. It posits that analyzing community participation through the lens of “controversy” underscores both the generative and destructive potential of conflict within design processes that are oriented toward socio-material transformation in the aftermath of catastrophe.
