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How can a focus on socio-technical vulnerability and uncertainty make cyber security more resilient? In this article, we provide a conceptual discussion of how to increase cyber resilience. First, we show how cyber security and resilience thinking co-evolved through their connection to critical infrastructures, and how the ensuing dominant technical focus inevitably always falls short due to the diverse societal values that underpin their critical social functions. We argue that a sole focus on aggregate systems neglects the important differences in how cyber threats are experienced and dealt with by individuals. Second, we draw on insights from social resilience and disaster management literature to establish a better link between individuals and cyber systems. We focus on two key aspects of cyber security that highlight its social nature: vulnerability and uncertainty. Instead of thinking of cyber security as a "technical problem + humans," we suggest cyber security should be conceptualized as a "social problem + technology." We conclude by highlighting three ways forward for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners: interdisciplinary research, public debate about a set of normative questions, and the need for an uncertainty discourse in politics and policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Field trips have long been central to geography, but have been subject to assessment of the role of the "field" in teaching. At the same time, academics face barriers to running field trips. Distance education and enhanced educational access for non-metropolitan students represented such an obstacle at an Australian university. These obstacles were taken as an opportunity to draw on the regional nature of the students and staff to enhance teaching goals, run critically informed field trips by and manage academic workloads. We evaluate the field trips by conducting surveys and interviews with students and tutors, and as an example of innovation within constraints. (Contains 2 tables and 3 figures.)

This paper examines gender differences in awareness, preparedness and attitudes towards bushfire amongst landholders in rural landscapes affected by amenity-led in-migration in southeast Australia. It considers the potential of conceptualising bushfire not as a gender-neutral natural phenomenon but as an important means by which traditional gender roles and power relations within rural landscapes are maintained. Landholders were found to uphold conventional views of bushfire management as "men's business" despite changing social circumstances. Consequently, key gender differences exist within landholders' bushfire risk awareness, bushfire knowledge, the perceived need for bushfire preparedness measures, the willingness to perform certain tasks, and the belief in personal capacity to act. We argue that covert and less visible as well as overt gender roles and traditions are important factors in understanding landholders' engagement with bushfire management. When gendered dimensions of bushfire are investigated in the context of hegemony, a paradox emerges between women choosing not to take control of their own bushfire safety and women being denied the opportunity to take control. The complex and contradictory actions and attitudes to bushfire that materialise through an analysis of gendered social experiences complicate attempts to create more gender-sensitive frameworks for bushfire management. The tenacious and embedded nature of gender role divisions within both public and private spheres was furthermore found to act as economic, social and political stumbling blocks for empowerment opportunities. Using a mixed-methods research approach, this paper maps out gendered dimensions of bushfire through landholders' narratives and actions. The implications of these dimensions for bushfire management have direct relevance to recent international discussions of the vulnerability of the growing number of people living in bushfire-prone rural-urban interface areas. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

In the aftermath of a firestorm, many survivors will spend time with the ruins of their homes, fossicking through the rubble or simply being present with the transformed space. Through a series of oral history interviews with survivors of the 2003 Canberra firestorm in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), this paper investigates ruined homes as spaces imbued with memory – of the fire itself, of life before the fires, and of a once imagined future. By examining the first hours and days after the firestorm, we explore the complex temporalities and spatial meanings at play in spaces that are simultaneously understood as both home and ruins. We argue that the unmaking of home by fire is a gradual process. In resistance to the rapid destruction of fire, and before the clearing of ruins by demolition crews, many firestorm survivors enact a slow and embodied process of unmaking. This enactment allows both a coming to terms with the fire's material impacts and a careful engagement with the space's mnemonic resonances. It provides important lessons for a 21st century where more frequent and intense disasters will continue to result in engagement with home-in-ruins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing awareness and research into experiences of gender and sexual minorities – also known as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual and other identities (LGBTQIA+) – their needs and capacities are often overlooked in crisis response and disaster risk reduction. LGBTQIA+ peoples' vulnerability is shaped by social marginalisation, discrimination, and stigma, and exacerbated by dominant value systems and Western heteronormative framings of disaster experiences. We present a review of scholarship into gender and sexual minorities and disasters. We summarise extant knowledge and identify areas for growth in the field of disaster geographies. We argue that progress requires increased conceptual and methodological focus on diversity and the intersectional factors that exacerbate marginality, more inclusive knowledge production pathways focussed on risk reduction, and establishing methods for LGBTQIA+ people to be involved in research about them. More critical and inclusive research will not only aid progress in disaster geographies; it will also provide vital evidence with which to lobby policymakers and disaster management to pay closer attention to diversity and inclusion. By moving beyond normativity, cisgender‐heterosexual assumptions, and homogenising identity labels, we can begin to address social, cultural, and political factors that determine spatial inequalities, marginalisation, and disaster vulnerability for gender and sexual minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the historical importance of fire as a savanna land management tool, much controversy still surrounds discussions on anthropogenic fire utilization and the sustainability of indigenous land management practices in African savannas. This controversy is arguably a result of a discord between official fire policies and actual indigenous fire practices--a discord based on a gap in existing knowledge of, and a lack of informed literature on, the importance of fire for socioeconomic and environmental survival in savanna environments. Addressing a continuing lack of research on the political ecology of fire, this study investigates the historical and present day socio-economic, environmental and political frameworks that affect anthropogenic burning regimes and land management in the Kafinda Game Management Area and Kasanka National Park in Zambia. A series of participatory research activities revealed the continuing importance of fire to rural livelihoods, but that a mismatch in desired burning regimes exists between local stakeholders. The paper argues that local power relations are preventing the local communities from adopting burning regimes that would be more environmentally sustainable and more in line with present day farming systems. KEY WORDS: Zambia, savanna, fire management, indigenous resource management, political ecology, participatory rural appraisal

As I Fire i aims to address a diverse international audience, articles submitted to the " I Fire Social Science i " section must advance established knowledge by drawing on, extending, or bridging a demonstrated gap in published international fire social science scholarship. Climate change is often espoused in public debates as being I the i main culprit of the increasing frequency, scale, and intensity of wildfires around the world. [Extracted from the article]

Increasing numbers of households are impacted by disasters due to population growth, increasing development in higher risk areas, and climate change. While emergency management in Australia aims to reduce quantifiable losses, lived disaster and recovery experiences are relatively mute, with implications for mitigation and post‐disaster support. This paper draws on findings from a research project that set out to examine the role of insurance in household recovery after the 2013 Blue Mountains bushfires in New South Wales. Among the 19 interview participants, prioritisation of the needs of children was found to hinder personal recovery. Drawing on this key finding, this paper focuses on parents' emotion work and emotions surrounding home. Innate desires to provide good care monopolised parents' emotions and emotional outlets, as they worked to conceal threats and (re)establish a sense of normalcy. Emotion work drained parents, as did threats to, and the loss of, "home" created through "dwelling." When homes burnt, so too did memories of children embodied in that home – memories that had permeated the material space. This sense of loss intensified when informing children about losses – an act that breached parents' protective instincts and necessitated additional emotional care. Emotions escalated as capacities for care were challenged or eroded in the absence of home contents that normally would have anchored daily routines and provided stability. Replacing such items dominated parents' recovery efforts – efforts encumbered by competing recovery demands, yet facilitated to some degree by insurance safety‐nets. These emotions impacted parents' mental and physical wellbeing in the four years that separated the bushfires and the interviews. While there is considerable literature outlining parents' role in lessening disaster impacts on children, few studies examine parents' capacity to do so. In addressing this gap, this paper highlights avenues to improve psychosocial aspects of disaster recovery. Parenting is challenging at the best of times, let alone in disasters. Focusing on the 2013 Blue Mountains bushfires in Australia, this paper explores the emotions involved in caring for children while surviving and recovering from a disaster. Insights from "emotion work" and the loss of "home" – structures bound with memories and resources for good care – highlight both demands on parents and avenues to improve post‐disaster wellbeing for families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Home and contents insurance is framed as key to Australia's national strategy for disaster resilience. Despite the perceived importance of financial indemnity, ambiguity characterises the ways in which it facilitates both short‐ and long‐term everyday household recovery when disaster strikes. Addressing such ambiguity, this article explores how insurance impacts upon households' capacities to rebuild and recover after disastrous bushfire. In‐depth interviews conducted with residents in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales four years after they were affected by the October 2013 bushfires show that insurance was fundamental to recovery. Swift claims handling and payouts allowed participants to access rental accommodation, material necessities, and sufficient finances to repair, rebuild, and refurnish their houses—essentials in restoring everyday routines and a sense of normalcy. Yet, many people were underinsured and used alternative strategies to stretch "adequate" insurance coverage, which had practical and emotional implications. Importantly, while insurance reduced post‐disaster stress and trauma, the length and depth of recovery were more closely determined by the impacts of personal and situational circumstances than by insurance. On that basis, analysis points to the conclusion that while insurance is a crucial tool for disaster resilience, greater levels of psychosocial support are needed to improve households' short‐ and longer‐term recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Home and contents insurance is integral to household and community resilience against disasters. Yet many households are underinsured. While causes for underinsurance have been widely researched, changes to Australian building regulations in the last decade has established a new source of insurance miscalculations. Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) ratings can inflate rebuilding costs by 20% or more, yet BAL ratings remain obfuscated to homeowners and are notoriously confusing to navigate. After the October 2013 bushfires in New South Wales, the Blue Mountains Local Recovery Steering Group found that 'information on the BAL process, the guidelines, the expected costs, the consulting experts and a property's bushfire-prone status is literally all over the place'. This paper aims to provide clarity on the subject, tracing the precise socio-technical means through which disaster risk is perceived and assessed. The paper conceptualises insurance and risk ratings as calculative devices that provide both a technical solution to reduce financial losses and a philosophical tool for risk rationalisation. It then builds on interviews conducted with residents in the Blue Mountains affected by the 2013 bushfires, to ascertain how such calculative devices practically affect communities at risk. The paper concludes by outlining potential solutions to a confusing and costly problem in Australia, highlighting critical public awareness issues surround BAL ratings, which have profound insurance and wellbeing implications for people rebuilding and recovering from bushfire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines findings from a 2016 study on gender and leadership within the British Columbia Wildfire Service (BCWS), Canada. The study utilised action research to facilitate an in-depth conversation among wildland firefighters about gender and leadership, and to explore participant-derived actions steps within the BCWS towards a perceived ideal future(s). The study found widespread occurrences of gender discrimination in the day-to-day practice of leadership, and that gender made a difference for wildland firefighters' experiences of normative workplace culture. In their practice of leadership, participants described a trade-off between gender diversity and excellence. The article concludes that the practice of leadership within wildland fire must include open dialogue about, and strategic engagement with, gendered cultural norms within the workplace in order to dispel myths and latent beliefs, and support what firefighters in this study defined as 'excellent leadership'. This study utilised dialogue-based research among wildland firefighters in the British Columbia Wildfire Service, Canada, on gender, leadership and wildland fire culture. Firefighters shared action steps and suggested strategies that focus on changing gendered cultural norms in leadership to address gender discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the concept of embodied uncertainty by exploring multiple dimensions of uncertainty in the context of risks associated with extreme natural hazards. We highlight a need for greater recognition, particularly by disaster management and response agencies, of uncertainty as a subjective experience for those living at risk. Embodied uncertainty is distinguished from objective uncertainty by the nature of its internalisation at the individual level, where it is subjective, felt and directly experienced. This approach provides a conceptual pathway that sharpens knowledge of the processes that shape how individuals and communities interpret and contextualise risk. The ways in which individual characteristics, social identities and lived experiences shape interpretations of risk are explored by considering embodied uncertainty in four contexts: social identities and trauma, the co-production of knowledge, institutional structures and policy and long-term lived experiences. We conclude by outlining the opportunities that this approach presents, and provide recommendations for further research on how the concept of embodied uncertainty can aid decision-making and the management of risks in the context of extreme natural hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Research Note, I reflect on researcher trauma in the discipline of geography, and explore ways to build a framework for researcher self-care by facilitating conversations about mental health in collaboration with Human Research Ethics Committees, Professional and Organisational Development Services and Workplace Health and Safety units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines vulnerability in the context of affluence and privilege. It focuses on the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm in California, USA to examine long-term lived experiences of the disaster. Vulnerability is typically understood as a condition besetting poor and marginalized communities. Frequently ignored in these discussions are the experiences of those who live in more affluent areas. This paper seeks to more closely explain vulnerability at its interface with affluence. The aim is to challenge uncritical explanations of vulnerability. We also offer alternative ways of conceptualizing vulnerability as a material condition and social construct that acknowledges broader cultural, ecological, and economic conditions, which may offset, maintain or deepen true risk exposure. Drawing on in-depth interviews with residents and emergency service managers, the paper presents a suite of vulnerability categories that intersect to create two concomitant and competing conditions. First, vulnerability is variegated between households within communities, including those in more affluent areas. Second, household vulnerability is collectively altered, and oftentimes reduced, by the broader affluent community within which individual households reside. By paying closer attention to the Affluence–Vulnerability Interface the paper reveals a recursive process, which is significant in the context of building more disaster resilient communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the gendered dynamics of wildland firefighting through analysis of employment statistics and in-depth interviews with employees of the National Parks and Wildlife Service in New South Wales, Australia. The statistics suggest increased gender equality for women following the affirmative gender politics of the 1990s in a previously male-dominated workplace. However, we argue these statistics mask how some patterns of practice surrounding fire management continue to reproduce a gendered workplace. Turning to the concept of hegemonic masculinity, we explore the ongoing gendered assumptions of this workplace and identify those that prove most resistant to change around bodies, masculinity, leadership, and parenting. This focuses the spotlight on gender equity. The article considers respect of gender difference in relation to wider questions of mentoring, training and leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bushfire survival plans are a valuable tool for residents living in fire-prone landscapes. Plans include assigning trigger points for action, roles for all household members, and alternate approaches should the original plan fail. Fire agencies advocate that residents write, practise and discuss these plans before the fire season. In this study we use a multiple-methods approach to examine the theoretical and actual application of bushfire survival plans in south-east Australia. First, we review agency advice regarding survival plans to determine the consistency, clarity and specificity of the advice. Second, an online survey of residents examines the relationships between types of plans, with the planned action during a wildfire, gender and past experience with fire. Finally, semi-structured interviews with residents who have experienced wildfire examine the reality of decision-making, triggers used for actions and the role of survival plans. The study concludes that: a) fire agencies provide clear and concise information around survival plans despite some variation between states; b) preparation of survival plans is limited by the same range of factors that limit the extent of overall wildfire preparedness; and c) without a written, discussed and practised plan, decision-making during a wildfire may be impaired with potentially fatal consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from a gendered analysis of resident responses to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires (wildfires) in Victoria, Australia. One hundred and seventy-three people lost their lives in the bushfires and more than 2000 houses were destroyed. Previous research on Black Saturday has largely focused on issues of resident preparedness and response, with limited consideration of the role of gender in household decisions and actions. This paper examines the gendered dimensions of risk awareness, preparedness and response among households affected by the bushfires. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with over 600 survivors and a questionnaire of 1314 households in fire-affected areas. Analysis revealed that women more often wanted to leave than men, who more often wanted to stay and defend property against the bushfires. Nevertheless, findings suggest that broad-brush characterisations of staying to defend as a masculine response and leaving as a feminine response are misguided. Although some women expressed a strong desire to leave, others were resolute on staying to defend. Equally, while some men were determined to stay and defend, others had never considered it an option. Despite this, the research identified numerous instances where disagreement had arisen as a result of differing intentions. Conflict most often stemmed from men's reluctance to leave, and was most apparent where households had not adequately planned or discussed their intended responses. The paper concludes by considering the degree to which the findings are consistent with other research on gender and bushfire, and the implications for bushfire safety policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]