Disaster mobilities, temporalities, and recovery: experiences of the tsunami in the Maldives.

Large-scale disasters are frequently portrayed as temporally bounded, linear events after which survivors are encouraged to 'move on' as quickly as possible. In this paper, we explore how understandings of disaster mobilities and temporalities challenge such perspectives. Drawing on empirical research undertaken on Dhuvaafaru in the Maldives, a small island uninhabited until 2009 when it was populated by people displaced by the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, we examine what such understandings mean in the context of sudden population displacement followed by prolonged resettlement. The study reveals the diversity of disaster mobilities, how these reflect varied and complex temporalities of past, present, and future, and how processes of disaster recovery are temporally extended, uncertain, and often linger. In addition, the paper shows how attending to these dynamics contributes to understandings of how post-disaster settlement brings stability for some people while producing ongoing feelings of loss, longing, and unsettlement in others.

COVID-19 and the case for global development.

COVID-19 accentuates the case for a global, rather than an international, development paradigm. The novel disease is a prime example of a development challenge for all countries, through the failure of public health as a global public good. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the falsity of any assumption that the global North has all the expertise and solutions to tackle global challenges, and has further highlighted the need for multi-directional learning and transformation in all countries towards a more sustainable and equitable world. We illustrate our argument for a global development paradigm by examining the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic across four themes or 'vignettes': global value chains, digitalisation, debt, and climate change. We conclude that development studies must adapt to a very different context from when the field emerged in the mid-20th century.