Mapping Silences, Reconfiguring Loss: Practices of Damage Assessment & Narratives of Repair in Post-Earthquake Nepal

• In Event: Critical Data Studies: Ethics and Human Contexts of Data Science II

Abstract

This research is a critical investigation into the informatics of damage and loss. In the aftermath of major natural disasters, governments, aid agencies, and affected populations all engage in practices of sense-making to gauge the extent and severity of the crisis, guide response activities, and plan recovery. To understand the conduct and implications of these practices, we studied the information infrastructure supporting the damage assessment implemented by the Government of Nepal following the April 2015 earthquake. In addition, we studied post-disaster recovery in the Langtang Valley, one of the hardest hit areas of the country. We argue that the informatics of post-disaster damage assessment in Nepal played a primary role in narrating the events of the 2015 earthquake, legitimating particular practices of recovery in the aftermath, and ultimately limited opportunities for the constructive reconfigurations of social life that emerge during disasters. This research demonstrates that the forms of sense-making afforded by information technologies play central roles in determining the practices of infrastructure repair following crisis and breakdown. We offer a detailed case study of how data standards, when designed to serve priorities of the state, can undermine local agency in ways that can be surprising or challenging to predict.

Authors

• Robert Soden, University of Colorado Boulder

• Austin Lord, Cornell