Registration is now closed.

Participation and Engagement

A core aspect of the conference will be the role of communication in raising risk-awareness, planning for disaster response, promoting post-disaster public engagement and in ensuring institutional transparency. Communication is key to individual mental wellbeing as well as to the long-term success of social reconstruction.

• Can social media support societies impacted by disaster, reinforcing and extending the sense of community and reconnecting fractured social bonds?
• How can information technology empower communities to participate in processes of recovery?
• Are ground-up initiatives the key to sustainable, resilient recovery and preparedness?
• How can remote participation support in-loco initiatives and how can global engagement promote local recovery?

Art, Culture and Intangible Heritage

Art and culture provide a sense of identity, bring social cohesion and can be a focus for participation, engagement and sustained recovery. Conversely war and natural disaster provide the ideal conditions for looting and the loss of cultural heritage. The loss of physical access to art and culture during the COVID-19 emergency is exacerbated by the collapse of the cultural economy.

• How can the cultural sector recover from disaster and what is its role in stimulating economic recovery?
• How can digitisation and information technologies promote and protect cultural heritage, maintain access to culture and support artists following disaster?
• How can communities affected by disaster re-engage tourists without being subsumed by disaster tourism?
• Does the rediscovery of intangible culinary and agricultural traditions and of craft processes provide a basis for unique experiences, sustainable tourism and for global-facing localised communities?

Vulnerability

Natural, biological and man-made disasters disproportionately impact the marginalised and economically underprivileged, from children and the elderly, to the physically impaired, placing increased burdens on women and further impacting refugees and migrants. These categories have paid the highest price as a consequence of COVID-19 and the pandemic has exposed underlying fragilities and the inequality of access to technology, to shared resources and to open space.

• How can disaster responses avoid compounding pre-existing vulnerabilities?
• How can public space reduce social inequality and create places of safety, refuge and release?
• How can societies improve access to technology for the most vulnerable and what lessons can be learned from the pandemic?

Education and Schools

Schools, universities and museums are key to community cohesion and societal resilience, yet their importance is often forgotten in disaster response. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed fragilities at the different stages of the educational process, further highlighting those of the educators themselves and the importance of maintaining physical contact to preserve psychological well being.

• As adaptable, polyvalent public spaces of participation and refuge, how can schools protect from disaster, provide safety and promote recovery?
• What is the role of education in promoting resilience and social cohesion in communities at risk?
• In a rapidly changing world, how can cultural educators such as schools, universities and museums support life-long-learning and adaptation?

Organising Committee

Barnaby GUNNING
Hideiko KANEGAE DMUCH Ritsumeikan
Lucia PATRIZIO GUNNING UCL
Paola RIZZI UNISS, UDDI and DMUCH
Alessandro VACCARELLI UNIVAQ

Scientific Committee

David ALEXANDER UCL
Claudia BATTAINO DICAm, Università di Trento
Tanja CONGIU UNISS
Chaweewan DENPAIBOOMChulalongkorn University, Thailand
Donato DI LUDOVICO DICEAA UNIVAQ
Massimo FRAGIACOMO DICEAA UNIVAQ
Barnaby GUNNING
Pongpisit HUYAKORN UDDI Thammasat University
Rohit JIGYASU ICCROM
Hideiko KANEGAE DMUCH Ritsumeikan
Florian MUSSGNUG UCL
Antonella NUZZACI UNIVAQ
Lucia PATRIZIO GUNNING UCL
Anna POREBSKA Krakow University of Technology
Sarunwit PROMSAKA NA SAKKONAKRON Thammasat University
Paola RIZZI UNISS, UDDI and DMUCH
Kasumi SUSAKI Ryukoku University
Yusuke TOYODA Ritsumeikan University
Francesca UCCELLA La Sapienza
Alessandro VACCARELLI UNIVAQ
Alessandra VITTORINI Fondazione Scuola Beni Attività Culturali

With the support of

The Global Engagement Office, University College London
DMUCH Ritsumeikan
Università degli Studi, L'Aquila
The History Department, University College London

Under the auspices of

DADU, Department of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning, University of Sassari
SIPED, Società Italiana di Pedagogia