Reciprocity or token gestures? On the conditions of knowledge production in disaster scholarship

Purpose This paper aims to reflect on how knowledge about disasters is produced: what is said, by whom and where and through which methodological approaches – and how these processes shape the field. Here we ask: do the current conditions of knowledge production in disaster scholarship make the transformation called for in the Manifesto possible at all? Design/methodology/approach To understand how the knowledge is produced and whether the Manifesto is at the heart of the knowledge production, we took a two-fold approach to evidence finding. First, we did a broad search for the papers that mention Disaster Studies Manifesto, and secondly, we reviewed all papers published in three disaster journals between 2020 and 2024. We examined patterns across three dimensions: discursive concentration, geographical asymmetry and methodological distribution to understand how the knowledge is produced. Findings The findings show that disaster scholarship is structured by a relatively narrow epistemic vocabulary, uneven relations between sites of research and sites of authorship, and a dominance of methodological approaches that prioritise extraction, quantification and limited forms of participation. Whilst critical perspectives are increasingly visible, epistemic inequalities in the field limit the possibility of enacting the principles of the Disaster Studies Manifesto, which risks becoming a token gesture rather than a driver of transformation. Originality/value The paper demonstrates that the production of knowledge in disaster studies remains shaped by disciplinary traditions rooted in positivism, fragmentation and exclusion. These conditions do not simply limit what is studied, but structure how knowledge is produced, legitimised and circulated.