Ignorance production in national disaster risk governance and emergency response-abilities of commoning collectives: The 2023 earthquakes in Turkey

Top-down approaches to disaster risk management, in which risks and vulnerabilities are supposed to be reduced, in turn can escalate risks and vulnerabilities that are associated with institutional decision-making patterns and political strategies. Data, information, knowledge, and critical input of the non-state stakeholders and even of scientists and experts can be ignored when they are not in line with the development priorities, investment plans, and profit-making goals of the state and its stakeholders. Focusing on the emergency response of the commoning collectives, the state and its stakeholders during the 2023 Earthquakes in Turkey, this study explored how ignorance production was situated in national disaster risk governance. The study adopted exploratory sequential mixed methods. The findings revealed that disaster risk reduction policies were customized within a necropolitical strategy and populism. The social construction of polarized communities was used for the profit-making interests, the obfuscation of facts and the avoidance of accountability, transparency and responsibility. While dealing with the ignorance production situated in national disaster risk governance, commoning collectives and their emergency response-abilities highlighted that disaster risk reduction is a problem of participatory democratic governance and it should be better supported.