Paper short abstract:

The complexity of urban systems render the tracing of the root causes of everyday hazards either ontologically indeterminate or their identification epistemologically frustrated. This paper outlines the role of participatory processes in attributing responsibility for everyday hazards.

Paper long abstract:

While there is increasing documentation of the incidence and impact of everyday hazards such as fire and floods in urban informal settlements, their causal origins, transcendent of immediate triggers and drivers, remain underexplored. A range of methodological challenges arise in this context. The multiplicity of such hazards, the density of interactions between the hazards and other elements of the urban system, together with the non-linearity of causal relationships can render the root causes of everyday hazards either ontologically indeterminate or their identification epistemologically frustrated. The prospects for attributing responsibility and identifying potential entry points for interventions to attenuate future risks can thereby be negatively impacted. These challenges may however be conducive to amelioration through certain modalities of participation. Participation by those affected by disasters arising from ‘everyday’ hazards allows for these events and their impacts to be defined, selected and temporally and spatially bounded in order to permit the tracing of causal origins. Broad participation also holds out the promise of a more holistic understanding of the overall system from which ‘everyday’ hazards arise. Certain modalities of participation are also beneficial in making sense of and ultimately imputing the causation of disaster events arising from ‘everyday’ hazards and identifying pathways to reducing risk. This paper outlines initial results from a study in Nairobi being conducted by the Tomorrow’s Cities project that aims to identify the root causes of everyday hazards in urban contexts and details the role of varying modalities of participation in contending with the system complexity encountered.