Paper short abstract:

The paper analyzes the construction of rhetorics of vulnerability, preparedness and resiliency among international organizations working on "natural" disasters and the way these rhetorics contribute to the understanding and the interpretation of disasters.

Paper long abstract:

The thematic of natural disasters has been grasped by UN's organizations since 30 years. If they primarily used to center their interventions on the reliefs, they progressively opened their field of action to preparedness and recovery programs. Based on a serie of field research at the UN- International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in Geneva since 2009, the paper analyzes the construction process of this different grammars and their impacts on the way of thinking and imagining the disasters. From time's representations (short temporality of disaster, long time of reconstruction), to the victim's image (passives and vulnerable, actives and resilient), UN's agencies, who handle this common rhetoric, are participating in the construction of a universe of meaning around disasters. Moreover, they propose a whole set of "good practices" that spread out on the fields and contribute to shape the way people act. The paper deals with both the production of this rhetorics and their effects, translations and impacts on the way of thinking disasters and victims.