Refocusing urban disaster governance on marginalised urban people through right to the city

In contemporary neoliberal regimes, urban disaster governance typically emphasises resilience of cities and their inhabitants. Marginalised urban people, most vulnerable to disasters, are thereby expected to exhibit self-organisation. Yet cities tend to be (re)constructed for capital, prioritising exchange-value, while the use-value is comparatively under-prioritized. In order to conceptually refocus urban disaster governance on justice for and power of marginalised urban people, we define and discuss three conceptualizations of the Right to the City (RTTC) – institutionalised, Harveyan and neo-Lefebvrian. The institutionalised RTTC is congruent with neoliberal urban disaster governance, but the other two may be used to challenge this conceptualisation. Striving to reclaim decision-making over capital accumulation in the city, a Harveyan RTTC-inspired disaster governance would prioritise addressing the processes of urban marginalisation through democratisation, rather than focusing solely on preparedness for and response to hazards. In partial contrast, a neo-Lefebvrian RTTC-inspired disaster governance would be mainly focused on bottom-up efforts to protect and recover the use-value of the city, particularly for disaster-vulnerable populations. We conclude that a combination of the latter two conceptualizations, expressed through a struggle on multiple terrains involving local self-organisation, formal democratisation and mobilisation of global networks, could make possible a more socially just urban disaster governance.