This article sets out to reconcile a general conceptualization of disaster temporalities by drawing on the epitome example of a creeping disaster, namely famine. The argument is driven by the recognition that slowly manifesting disaster impacts pose distinct challenges for decision makers and researchers while there is a tendency for the disaster literature to overlook the role of disaster onset dynamics. More specifically and as a starting point, the study identifies four key themes that merit particular attention when dealing with creeping disasters: (1) understanding of disaster as a phenomenon; (2) measurement and operationalization; (3) early warning and response; and (4) disaster management and termination. By integrating conceptual discussions of disaster with famine scholarship—a phenomenon often excluded from mainstream disaster research—this article provides fresh perspectives on disaster science as well as a number of implications for disaster risk reduction thinking.
This article underlines how famines, as one example of how creeping disasters produce distinct dynamics, demand allowances for such nuances and temporal perspectives not only in root cause analyses but also in how impacts are experienced and managed. The lived experience of famine disasters is temporally stretched and so are necessarily responses to famine. Among other things, the very existence of such disasters is more likely to be contested as unaffected groups may organize to deny the reality of a slowly developing creeping disaster, such as a famine. This does not make them any less a product of a long range of root causes, proving logically that discussions of disaster onset patterns are by no means antithetical to considerations of vulnerability in disaster research. Increased attention to aspects of onset could provide novel theoretical insights as well as valuable practical lessons for disaster researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. Creeping disasters, importantly, should not be approached as representing entirely novel challenges, although some aspects are distinct. An important implication of this article is that the notion of onset needs further theorization and empirical clarification in disaster research.