The 2008 Disaster Mitigation Preparedness (DMP) study took place in Aceh province, Indonesia. It sought to help develop radio programmes and messages to increase resilience to disasters. The role of radio was evaluated during and after the 2004 Asian tsunami disaster. The study team interviewed 984 tsunami survivors from nine sub-districts of Banda Aceh, and local nongovernmental organisations convened eight focus groups around the area of Aceh Besar. Six key informant interviews were held with government disaster management agencies. The DMP survey is the first of its kind to interview a representative random sample of Banda Aceh residents. It reveals the importance of community and social networks, during disaster situations, when essential communications are down. A disaster warning information system based on a multi-media approach needs to be developed. The wider community should be involved in the planning, education and training of Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar residents to facilitate appropriate personal and community survival strategies.

Humanitarian radio has been used in humanitarian aid efforts and after natural disasters over the last 15 years. However, the effects have barely been evaluated, and there are few scientific reports on the impact of radio as a disaster health response intervention. Therefore, this study aimed to provide an overview of the use and impact of humanitarian radio in natural disasters from a health perspective. A literature review of 13 scientific papers and grey literature resources was conducted. The results show that humanitarian radio could be used to promote both physical and psychosocial wellbeing by providing health-related information, advice and psychosocial support in natural disasters. Community resilience can be enhanced by the promotion of community engagement and can strengthen self-efficacy and community efficacy. Radio also has the potential to cost-effectively reach a large number of affected people in areas with severely damaged infrastructure. Radio could, therefore, contribute to health recovery and wellbeing from both individual and community perspectives. As such, health professionals; crises communication professionals, including radio journalists; and disaster-managing stakeholders should be prepared and trained to use humanitarian radio as an integrated part of the disaster health response in natural disasters.

The 2008 Disaster Mitigation Preparedness (DMP) study took place in Aceh province, Indonesia. It sought to help develop radio programmes and messages to increase resilience to disasters. The role of radio was evaluated during and after the 2004 Asian tsunami disaster. The study team interviewed 984 tsunami survivors from nine sub-districts of Banda Aceh, and local nongovernmental organisations convened eight focus groups around the area of Aceh Besar. Six key informant interviews were held with government disaster management agencies. The DMP survey is the first of its kind to interview a representative random sample of Banda Aceh residents. It reveals the importance of community and social networks, during disaster situations, when essential communications are down. A disaster warning information system based on a multi-media approach needs to be developed. The wider community should be involved in the planning, education and training of Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar residents to facilitate appropriate personal and community survival strategies.

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PurposeThe neoliberal resilience discourse and its critiques both contribute to its hegemony, obscuring alternative discourses in the context of risk and uncertainties. Drawing from the “ontology of potentiality”, the authors suggest reclaiming “resilience” through situated accounts of the connected and relational every day from the global south. To explore alternate possibilities, the authors draw attention to the social ontology of disaster resilience that foregrounds relationality, intersectionality and situated knowledge.Design/methodology/approachQuilting together the field work experiences in India, Indonesia, Nepal, Chile and Andean territories, the authors interrogate the social ontologies and politics of resilience in disaster studies in these contexts through six vignettes. Quilting, as a research methodology, weaves together various individual fragments involving their specific materialities, situated knowledge, layered temporalities, affects and memories. The authors’ six vignettes discuss the use, politicisation and resistance to resilience in the aftermath of disasters.FindingsWhile the pieces do not try to bring out a single “truth”, the authors argue that firstly, the vignettes provide non-Western conceptualisations of resilience, and attempts to provincialise externally imposed notions of resilience. Secondly, they draw attention to social ontology of resilience as the examples underscores the intersubjectivity of disaster experiences, the relational reaching out to communities and significant others.Originality/valueDrawing from in-depth research conducted in six disaster contexts by seven scholars from South Asia, South America and Northern Europe, the authors embrace pluralist situated knowledge, and cross-cultural/language co-authoring. Thus, the co-authored piece contributes to diversifying disaster studies scholarship methodologically.