Disasters, Risks, Responses, and Recovery

“As disasters are increasing in number and intensity, so too will be the need for reconstruction…”

So reads a line from the blurb of Making Things Happen, Jane Murphy Thomas’ account of post-earthquake reconstruction in Pakistan. And, sadly, how prescient it was, for her book was published just weeks before the same nation experienced a new disaster, the terrible flooding that left more than 10% of it underwater.

Here we have gathered our most recent volumes on the subject of disaster in its many awful forms (earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, nuclear accidents, chemical spills, and more), and on our approaches to risk management, and the many challenges of post-disaster reconstruction.

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The Making of Making Things Happen

An interview with Jane Murphy Thomas

JANE MURPHY THOMAS is an independent consultant, practitioner, project manager and social anthropologist in projects for UN agencies, NGOs, governments, donor agencies, and consulting firms, specializing in anthropological approaches and community participation in conflict and disaster-prone locations. Her book, Making Things Happen: Community Participation and Disaster Reconstruction in Pakistan was published in July in hardback and Open Access ebook editions. Following the interview are photographs, some never before published, illustrating steps in the reconstruction process.

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