ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors describe wide range of interdisciplinary knowledge and examine the critical concepts that must inform their approach to disaster practice. They aim to ensure equality and justice across and between generations, cultural integration, participatory democratic processes and fair and reasonable access to services are experienced by all. Within the field of disaster response, there has been a debate between those who conceptualise post-disaster needs in terms of trauma and mental health morbidity, and those who focus more on resiliency, social capital, and rebuilding social networks under the umbrella term of psychosocial capacity building. The authors explain pre- and post-disaster actions becoming captive to a vocal, non-representative but influential minority. They focus on the social elements, noting that social sustainability has become a highly contested term in its own right, not so much because academics do not agree that it is important, but more because their struggle with how to encompass all the elements of social life.
