Reflecting on Ben Wisner’s Contributions to Scholarship and Scholars: The Benschrift

This book is a festschrift in tribute to Ben Wisner’s contributions to disaster studies and adjacent fields of scholarship such as political ecology, development, and sustainability.

This festschrift for Ben, and so The Benschrift, revitalises, promotes, and critiques a selection of six foundational articles that span Ben’s 50-year career. Each article is reproduced integrally and followed by a commentary by an expert in the field and a response from Ben. As a result, this book not only introduces a lifetime’s work to the latest generation of researchers; it also contributes a meaningful dialogue across decades of scholarship, expressing contemporary reflections alongside the understanding of how to engage with and improve past research. Two fundamental truths stand out: the value of local knowledge and the necessity of seeking root causes and radical solutions.

This book is an essential read for students, researchers, policy makers and practitioners interested in the development and evolution of disaster scholarship, political ecology, development and sustainability studies.

Ben Wisner is an activist scholar who finds himself tempted by nostalgia for the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s when he worked to understand and address disaster risk with civil society and local government in a number of countries in eastern and southern Africa, Asia, Latin American and the Caribbean. In his 80th decade, he watches the autumn leaves turn colour, contemplates the cycle of life, death and rebirth, and he wonders what impact his university teaching and publications have had. The warm southwest wind whispers the names of his many co-authors, co-editors and research partners. He is grateful for them all.

JC Gaillard is Ahorangi o te Matawhenua / Professor of Geography at Waipapa Taumata Rau / The University of Auckland. His work focuses on power and inclusion in disaster and disaster studies. It includes developing participatory tools for engaging minority groups in disaster risk reduction with an emphasis on cultural and gender minorities, people in detention and children. More details from: https: //jcgaillard.wordpress.com.

Ilan Kelman https: //www.ilankelman.org/ and Instagram/Threads/X @ILANKELMAN is Professor of Disasters and Health at University College London, England and a Professor II at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway. His overall research interest is linking disasters and health, integrating climate change into both. Three main areas are: (i) disaster diplomacy and health diplomacy https: //www.disasterdiplomacy.org/; (ii) island sustainability focusing on safe and healthy living and livelihoods https: //www.islandvulnerability.org/; and (iii) risk education for health and disasters https: //www.riskred.org/