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Abstract
This paper explores the critical need to integrate linguistic justice into disaster risk reduction (DRR) and resilience planning. Linguistic injustice can cause enduring harm even in ordinary times, limiting access to essential services, marginalising minority groups, and deepening social inequalities. Yet during disasters, the consequences of linguistic exclusion can be even more devastating — becoming, quite literally, a matter of life and death. Although navigating language policy is already fraught with challenges in peaceful settings, it becomes even more complex under the pressures of crisis. This article positions linguistic justice within the broader literature on disaster management, focusing particularly on DRR frameworks. It examines the management of linguistic diversity and the state’s responsibilities in mitigating language-based disadvantages within both natural and man-made disasters. Two research questions guide the discussion: (1) How is language represented in DRR literature across the three phases of disasters — before, during, and after — considering both its practical and symbolic dimensions? and (2) What ethical principles should underpin linguistic justice within DRR efforts? Finally, drawing on Etkin and Timmerman’s (2013) I-Thou model and Peled’s (2024) solidarity-based approach to language, the paper proposes an alternative ethics of disaster management that centres linguistic justice.
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