Paper short abstract:

This work will discuss the everydayness of disasters based on 18 months of ethnography fieldwork done in Assam to discuss how disaster studies use traditional methods that emerged from Western ontologies to study disasters that occurred in the global south.

Paper long abstract:

Flood and riverbank erosions have always been part of everyday lives for the riverine communities in Assam as more than 39.6% of the total area of Assam is ‘flood prone’ which is four times more than the national mark of 10.2%. And the river emerges not only as a ‘destroyer’ but also as a ‘creator’ hence, the riparian community have learned to manage, welcome them, and build a lifestyle concerning floods. They have learned to bear [episodic floods], not quite to cope with the extraordinary inundations, but to bend with them and rise again. Hence, remembering hazardous events is important to communities as memories of past disasters inform about the disaster historiography and impact on their environment. It also informs community knowledge and practices to cope and build back better. However, disaster studies use traditional methods to study disasters that emerged from Western ontologies in many ways these methodologies are used as restrictive tools in contextualizing the research and communities and often fail to fit local context. Hence, through this paper I attempt to use non-traditional ways (primarily lived experience through photos, folklore, songs, and stories) that were used to reflect and influences people or communities’ interpretation of risk, loss, response to disasters and what it is like to be living with disasters. Also, how the community through these creative methodologies in co-producing knowledge in everydayness of disasters, or speaking for themselves to discuss nuance in disasters risk reduction from the lens of power and powerless, landlessness and migration.