21st Annual Conference
The International Association for the Study of Environment, Space, and Place
Liverpool John Moores University
April 29-May1, 2026.
(Un)precedented Times?:
Reflecting on Global Disasters as places of destruction and spaces for opportunity
The word “disaster” comes from the 16th-century French “désastre” and the Italian “disastro,” and literally means “Ill-starred.” Ill-starred is an apt term to describe the first quarter of the 21st century on Earth. There have been wars, pandemics, economic crises, political extremism, natural disasters, and the growing impact of climate change. The combination of events has helped forward a narrative from a variety of sources—news media, social media, influencers, marketers, and scholars—that we are living in an unprecedented time in human history. Does the present generation really face challenges greater than those previously experienced in modern history? How have we responded to man-made and natural disasters in the past, and do the responses have anything to teach us now? The notion of what is possible or impossible pre-disaster can radically change post-disaster. Disasters often shatter the status quo and reshape our environments physically, mentally, and emotionally. Disasters force people to think about their world differently and can provide the opportunity for new approaches—to conceive what had previously been considered inconceivable.
This interdisciplinary conference will explore this question by opening conversations on the past, present and predicted future of global disasters. We invite scholars to consider how the concept of disaster and its impact on environments, spaces, and places (broadly conceived) with the aim of exploring various ways to understand the challenges confronting the contemporary world and the opportunities to approach both problems and solutions from new perspectives.
Examples of possible topics (not exhaustive):
- Natural disasters (including unique weather events, droughts, earthquakes, etc) and how people respond.
- Disasters and memory.
- Responses to pandemics and health crises.
- Framing disasters/disaster narratives.
- Disastrous aesthetics/aesthetics of disaster.
- Phenomenology of disaster.
- Deontology and disaster.
- Disastrous technology and warfare.
- Disaster and ethical perspectives (e.g. medical ethics, lifeboat ethics, environmental ethics, or virtue ethics).
- Presenting disasters (official statements, social media, or traditional media).
- How economic or political crises can reshape understandings of place and space.
- Disaster tourism.
- Disasters and recovery, regeneration, or reclamation.
- Attempting to predict or avoid disasters.
- Disasters and apocalyptic thinking.
- Disaster and theodicy.
- Social Contract theory and disaster.
- The Walking Dead and Ethics in the Zombie Apocalypse
Please send abstracts (300 words) to Troy Paddock paddockt1@southernct.edu no later than February 13, 2026. More information about IASESP and past conferences can be found at IASESP.org.
IASESP 