Mapping Silences, Reconfiguring Loss

Abstract

In the aftermath of major natural disasters, governments, aid agencies, and affected populations engage in practices of sense-making to gauge the extent and severity of the crisis, direct response activities, and coordinate recovery planning. To understand the conduct and implications of these practices, we examined the official damage assessment implemented by the Government of Nepal following the April 2015 earthquake. In addition, we undertook participatory mapping to examine the consequences of this assessment in the Langtang Valley, a severely-affected area 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 paths toward recovery in the aftermath, and limiting opportunities for alternative configurations of social life that emerge during disasters. Our research demonstrates the ways that forms of sense-making afforded by information technologies play central roles in enacting repair-work following crisis and breakdown.