International Congress On Disaster Ethics

The DESASTRE Project Research Group and the BIOETICA Research Group of the University of Oviedo organize the first International Congress on Disaster Ethics, which will take place in Oviedo (Asturias, Spain) the 20, 21 and 22 of June 2024.

Mass emergencies, crisis, disasters, and catastrophes are highly complex phenomena with multiple dimensions of analysis. Likewise, effective disaster management and so-called disaster risk reduction require coordinated efforts and multi-agency, cross-sectoral and multi-level approaches. Disaster studies thus attract and bring together a wide range of disciplines, including many from fields in the social sciences and humanities. Emergency and disaster situations are of course receiving an increasing attention in ethics. Moreover, ethical problems and conflicts are expected to become more acute and widespread as communities face more disasters and catastrophes in the future.

Disaster ethics can be seen as an emerging and hybrid field where many different disciplines converge or overlap. These include applied ethics such as bioethics, public health ethics, environmental ethics, tecnoethics, some professional ethics (firefighting ethics, police ethics, military ethics, etc.) and, last but not least, humanitarian ethics.

The conference aims to explore the interconnections between these and other fields of the theoretical and practical treatment of disasters. It also aims to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in theoretical and empirical studies and explorations focusing on issues of disaster ethics, including, among many others, the ethical commitments, duties and conflicts of the different actors involved in emergencies and disasters, the questions of ethical relevance in disaster preparedness, the ethical training of professionals working in complex emergencies and disasters, the ethical challenges posed by disaster research, etc.

Presentations will be allowed both in person and online. The conference language is English, but there will be panels for presentations in Spanish.