Paper short abstract:

Disaster response can serve as conduit for repression, but also for resistance and solidarity. Based on qualitative fieldwork and activist self-reflection, we detail the engagement of civil society actors in response to 2015 cyclone Komen in Myanmar and the 2016 droughts in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.

Paper long abstract:

Responding to disasters triggered by natural hazards is inherently political, and especially contested when it takes place in conflict-affected authoritarian settings. Disaster response can be a conduit to further a specific agenda, such as asserting party control or marginalizing minorities. But disaster response can also be a conduit for resistance and solidarity. Combining insights from one year of qualitative fieldwork (by first author, academic) and self-reflective organizational ethnography (by second author, activist in Myanmar), this paper details the engagement of civil society actors within three contested disaster response processes : the 2015 floods and landslides in Myanmar (overlapping with explosive identity politics), the 2016 drought in Ethiopia (overlapping with protests and a state of emergency), and 2016-2019 droughts in Zimbabwe (overlapping with a deepening social, political and economic crisis). The paper explores factors for low civil society mobilization and failures, as overwhelmingly observed in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Myanmar's Rakhine State, and successes, as found in Myanmar's Chin State. While bureaucratic restrictions and ambiguities, (threats of) violence, lingering trauma and socio-economic fatigue constrained mobilization in Chin State also, a diversity of civil society groups ranging from community organizations to formalized local non-governmental organizations could mobilize support via minority, diaspora and international aid networks. However, some of their lobbying activities were also constrained by international aid agencies. This suggests that studies of civil society activism should not only focus on the state and the authoritarian practices it engages with, but also on other non-state actors which co-shape the 'rules of the game'.