ABSTRACT

Despite growing research and attention to gendered disaster outcomes, very little research has pried open the social life of organisations where gender professionals have become part of disaster risk reduction and disaster preparedness teams (DRR). This chapter is an attempt to address this gap through the experiential lens of three gender experts working in this field. Hilhorst identified three domains of DRR, they are: science and disaster management; disaster risk governance, and local responses. Practitioners in humanitarian aid and disaster risk reduction many times criss-cross workspaces since there are opportunities today to link these two spheres, both normatively and in practical ways. Maria Holtsberg has a background in gender studies and worked for three-and-a-half years as a gender specialist in a DRR organisation which she had just left at the time of this conversation.