HowWeSurvive

In this episode of Doing Disasters Differently, Renae is joined by David Sanderson, the Inaugural Judith Neilson Professor of Architecture at UNSW, and Founder and lead of HowWeSurvive. With a true passion for disaster resilience and recovery, David talks about the importance of letting recovery be led by the social fabric of the community. 

Transcript

Renae Hanvin (00:07):

Hello and welcome to Doing Disasters Differently: The Podcast with Renee Hanvin, which is all about inspiring you to start thinking and doing disasters a little bit differently too. In this episode, I'm talking with David Sanderson and we're talking about the psychology of survival in disasters. Now, a little bit about David. I'm reading it from LinkedIn, but with over 30 years of experience in development and emergencies across the world, David is the inaugural Judith Nielsen Chair of Architecture at the University of New South Wales or UNSW in Sydney. He's a leading expert in urban resilience and recovery with a focus on vulnerability, risk reduction, and humanitarian intervention. David leads and facilitates research and teaching initiatives that aim to enhance the capacity and practice of communities, practitioners, and policymakers in addressing the challenges and opportunities of urban disaster recovery and prevention. He's the author and editor of influential publications, articles, guidelines, and reports, and has undertaken assignments for organizations in Australia and across the world.

(01:23):

Totally get onto his profile because there is so much more behind that. Now, I always like to start with where we met, and David and I, I don't actually think that we've met in person, to be honest with you. So I think we're that typical example of bridging ties through LinkedIn. And I've heard of him through all the work he's been doing, particularly with how we survive. So I'm really excited to be talking with David today. There is going to be so much to learn. David, I'm so excited to be talking with you as we've just been having a quick intro chat, but I have been wanting to do a podcast with you for a long time because you're doing some amazing work in this space. So can I ask you, I've just read your LinkedIn profile, but can you just, in your own words, give a little background about who are you and where have you come from and what are you doing?

David Sanderson (02:09):

Well, Renee, thank you very much. And it's a privilege to be part of this. And we were just saying all the amazing work you're doing on social capital and the rest and about being truly resilient ready, just to say you're really at the front of that. So thank you as a consumer just to say. But my own background is working in aid and disaster recovery. Well, it used to be most of my career, now half of my career in practice, if you like, with NGOs in different regions, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and then falling into university world some years ago. And that's a real privilege because you get more chance to think and to look and be objective, but still involved in that world. And a new initiative we kicked off, which I'm guessing we'll be talking about called How We Survive, which it certainly excites me.

Renae Hanvin (02:56):

I think coming from the humanitarian side though, so I think a lot of people, you come from disasters or you accidentally end up in disasters or you come from humanitarian. I mean, I've got lots of bridging type heres who are from that lens as well, and it brings so much into the wider conversation, that kind of lens as well.

David Sanderson (03:13):

Yeah, no, I hope so. And of course everybody has a role to play in everything and there's connections. I think one of the values of when people in humanitarian work seek to get it right, if you like, because of course it can always be better, is when you engage and listen and value relationships. And I think that's one of the key takeaways. And of course, too often that doesn't happen, but the principles are very clear that it's around supporting others. It's not a command and control. Intent, that does happen, of course, but it's not meant to be that. It's around that bottom up supporting people. My favorite phrase of all time is one coined by an A think Robert Chambers 30 years ago, which is whose reality counts. Is it my reality? Who cares what I think? Late, middle-aged white fella charging around doing stuff.

(04:01):

Who cares what I think? It's actually the seven-year-old girl living in a very lone commera. I've got a picture on my wall I've had for 30 years now. I've ago, I'm looking at her now from the early '90s taken with permission. And she's standing with a big smile in sort of quite nice clothes in India. She's standing on a rubber sheep because that's why she loves. And what matters is her reality. It's not the reality of the aid worker coming in and out telling people what to do. The reality of the count I'm looking at is her and her life and her agency, her freedoms, her abilities to do things. And the role of the outsider is to respectfully support that with dignity and not to be that sort of crushing, telling people what to do approach. Yeah, so that's what I hope is my takeaway.

Renae Hanvin (04:46):

I love that. I actually have. So I use Fiona Jaigo who ran the caravan park on Kangaroo Island and actually she delivers workshops for us, but she's my kind of inspiration person as well. She's the person who gets up every day to do business, run her business, and we've got to support people like her, not go in and tell her, but absolutely. I think that, yeah, that humanitarian lens is like super, super important. Now I'm going to ask you, because I had to write this and read this a few times. So here's my question. So what does human architectures really mean when you refer to it as designing places that prioritize relationships and everyday connection? Now, I'm going to confess, I'm not an academic, although I'm an adjunct research fellow at Flinders University, but I don't come from an academic space at all. I'm very practical top 140.

(05:35):

Yeah. So what is human architecture?

David Sanderson (05:38):

I see. Yeah, my background is an architect, I guess I should say. And I think there's a land about that. I take that as designing and supporting and helping, designing with not for and doing those things. I teach a course, postgraduate architecture course, well, I've just stepped down, but I've been doing it the last 10 years called social agency. And social agency is around finding your architect students in their fifth year asking questions that are societally relevant. And that means engaging with the girl who I failed to get the photo to show you just now, Renee. I'm sorry about that. But actually supporting people, supporting those people to actually fulfill their lives as much as can be. I suppose that sounds a bit abstract, isn't it? A more concrete example is straight after a disaster, disaster recovery. We need the immediacy of fire and rescue and the rest to pull you out of the fire or the rest to use that slight dramatic view or out of the flood and obviously essential and vital and lifesaving.

(06:39):

After that point, the recovery situation is more where it's actually reversing the who's got the power. It's actually communities to be in the driving seat of decisioning. That can be quite hard for intervening agencies who are not wrongly in the immediacy of a disaster are required to take a strong lead, rightly so. Yes. But afterwards, give that up please, politely, respectfully, and switch that around. And too, after we find in Australia and across the world, the idea that actually people are not listened to well enough, that those with the T-shirts with emblazoned stuff come in, the community goes quiet and are sort of taught to be heard like followers. And that's not okay, not because those people are evil, there's no such thing as that, but actually it's the wrong way around. And so good resilience, if you like, and good humanitarian architecture, bringing it back to your great question, is around actually shifting the power dynamics.

(07:32):

So you support communities, not provide. And one of the best examples of that is a study led by, it's called Time to Think. It was around 5,000 people over five years across the world, African-As Latin America, communities who were the experiencing disaster recovery. And they were asked, "What's your main experience of the aid world?" And it was, thank you very much. But secondly, don't take so much, don't rush in to do stuff. Just let us listen. Just listen to us because we know what we're doing and support us in recovery. That plays out literally in every continent and there's the evidence I've just mentioned to you and also in Australia where well-intended agencies are not rewarded to actually listen. It's not their metrics. It's not in their key deliverables to actually spend time to listen. It's run the product. And because you get that, what you actually get is that agencies don't listen well enough and people are disenfranchised and recovery is worse and people are less resilient and less ready to be resilient for the next disaster.

Renae Hanvin (08:31):

A hundred percent. And I think again, the work that we've been doing with Professor Daniel Audrich linked to linking ties. I mean, the data's very clearly telling us in the pilot communities, we haven't mapped it out across the rest of Australia yet, but there is a really low levels of trust and cooperation and connection into those in roles of a power and authority, which is an interesting thing because when disasters occur, and unfortunately my in- laws actually lost their house a couple of weeks ago in the Victorian bushfires. So we're going through, I guess it's a bit closer to home for this disaster as well and going through that process. I do say, I think a lot of the government agencies have come a long way, but I think in the recovery process, there is still some really, really clear fundamentals that we need to be shifting in that command and control or that dictatorship.

(09:16):

Now, can I ask again, my next question is around the UNSW initiative, how we survive, works in practice using social infrastructure as a tool to encourage partnership and then local ownership, et cetera. So can you tell us about how we survive? What is it? What have you done? How's it working? Because I love it. Well,

David Sanderson (09:35):

What a wonderful question. Thank you. You can imagine. Well, just tying into what we just were just talking then and then going to how we survive. People working in agencies, and I count close family members working really good people, but in a system that is not rewarded to actually support process. The deliverables of products, housing, temporary shelters, whatever being seen to be done. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. Yes, of course. Well, who wants a system that doesn't deliver? I mean, of course not about delivery, but the delivery comes at the cost of not engaging in process. And what you get are, we just finished a two-year big research study across Australia looking at post-disaster housing. You get the pods, which again, well intended, no evil here, no conspiracy. Cost the earth, no one knows what to do with them. Absolutely the wrong approach is the summary of a long story.

(10:28):

So how we survive is a modest but ambitious initiative. Our website is how we survive.com. And we're very grateful that the benefactor Judith Nelson, who supports my job position, provided money for us to give us a high degree of flexibility and freedom for decades. And again, we respectfully have careful stewards of that. And after some years of trying to work out what to do, we came out with how we survive.com. And we are friends in the US and in India and Australia and all that kind of thing. And it's around putting people's voices of recovery in the center. So how do we survive? How do we survive? How do you survive? Not the immediacy of the relief, but the recovery. So what we're doing is we're building a world map of people's stories of recovery. We've got about 1200 in Australia. We've got three, 400 in New Zealand, thanks to our fabulous friends and partners at the University of Canterbury who gathered stuff.

(11:22):

Our good friends and partners in India, Seeds, Seeds India. We've got several hundred now in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. We're about to start talking with the African Center for Disaster Studies in Johannesburg around doing that. So go look at it. You click on it. It'll tell you it's not edited. We've not done anything. It's all publicly available information. We've now got an AI functionality thanks to our friends at MapAI, which we launched in October at a big event in the state government. And you can look at it and you can say, well, what are the five pressing issues around people's experiences of recovery? So this is unedited stories of what people think, and that's really important. So whose reality counts? We are literally putting people's stories on the map. Again, thanks to our benefactor, we have money for the next 40 years for this to 2063.

(12:09):

So as my good friend and colleague, Kate Brady says, we will outlast ... This is not an arrogant pride statement. This is just a fact statement. We will outlast a lot of government departments. The rest which shift have short timeframes. As you know very well, Renee, I know one of the set of problems, a short timeframes of everything, and that's a global issue applied to anything. I mean, there's nothing new there. Because of this unique, may I say, situation, we want to chart long-term stuff, long-term differences. Another thing we're looking at is how corruption worsens disasters. There's no such thing as a natural disaster. We know that. Corruption plays a big role globally. This is a systemic global issue. Buildings don't fall down because of the earthquakes. They fall down because they're badly built and that's often because of poor construction or whatever it may be.

(12:57):

Or why are people living in floodplains? Please, no one's really got an answer for that yet. I mean, there's a housing crisis, but all those things. So because we've got this longevity, we want to take it seriously, respectfully, always working with others, never alone. This is a bit of a plug. If anyone watches this and is interesting to know, please come and say hello at howwsurvive.com.

Renae Hanvin (13:16):

Yeah, 100%. I think it's so phenomenal, that grassroots, like real stories, real people. And I always go back to the, I think 2011 national, or maybe 2017, I can't remember. No, I think it's 2011, National Disaster Resilience Strategy of Australia and the notion of shared responsibility. Yet we don't share the responsibility because we don't really include or listen to or consider the actual responsibility or the experiences that people are having. And that's why I think what you're doing, and Kate, we love Kate, is so phenomenal because having that 40 years is extraordinary in our space. Everything is like, dare I say, politics before people, I'm not sure. It's that cycle of funding. But to have 40 years to create something is phenomenal.

David Sanderson (14:03):

And just to say, sorry, because you really got me going now on this one. Absolutely. And because it's independent funding, and thanks to the rest and our supporter. So we can say things. Again, it's a systems of people. I mean, I've never met somebody who's evil in this business, all good, well-intended, but it is the systems. There is not a single person, a state or federal government in any of the disaster areas who is rewarded by saying, "Hold on, let's slow down. We need to talk to people now." Yes. It's in the systems, it's in there and people do that. And as I say, but you've got to get the thing done. And so what that rewards is, it's efficiency over effectiveness. Efficiency is more important and is rewarded over being effective because the short term ... So lots of things that say government to New South Wales right now about state disaster management plans, they're really good.

(14:55):

The SDMPs are really good. They're really well thought through. They're very clever. And yet now the number of them are being halved because of other priorities. And again, I mean, I get it. We're not loaded and all these things, but what actually happens is the efficiency is rewarded over the effectiveness. Effectiveness comes second and what you get is a half based job and that's the tragedy of system performance measurements.

Renae Hanvin (15:24):

And that's exactly the problem we're having, I guess, in the social capital space as well. So

(15:29):

It's the invisible infrastructure and it's not as cool as cutting a ribbon to say, "Hey, he's a new flood levy or whatever." Yet it's the people in the communities and the connections and trust and cooperation and those places and spaces that foster them to connect are so critical, but it's so hard getting anyone, particularly with the treasury purse strings to kind of recognize that. But anyway, we're building, building. And again, I love, that's why I've been watching how we survive and where it's gone. And even I love most that you didn't just decide what you were doing and then just start doing it. You really spent a lot of time identifying. And I guess leading into my next question, why recovery and resilience fail without social design? Because clearly that's been part of you been designing it from a social perspective as you've gone. So why is that so important?

David Sanderson (16:19):

Because it's the whoserat accounts. It's the sign there, resilient ready. It's the people, it's communities, it's the rest. We all know this. I've never met anybody who would disagree with this, but the systems we have where the power and the money is, doesn't reward process. And I come back, and exactly as you're saying, I mean, the great work you've been doing, Renee, these last year and years, especially with Daniel Aldrich, who's a friend to all of us who's just phenomenal and a real world leader in this, second to none, is around promoting process, the libraries, the ownership, the stuff, the people. We all know this. I've never met a Fari or ASO said, of course, but our systems don't reward that. They probably never will. What we can do, however, is actually make the case to be stronger, to support decision makers with bold initiatives to say it's a 20-year timeframe and I'm not going to see it in my political time, but there it is.

(17:10):

And there are people who do that. I mean, again, there are angels. Definitely. It's honest to support. The evidence isn't enough anymore. We live in a time now where evidence is not cutting it. It's the mindfulness and the caring and people in decisioning powers who actually ... I mean, I grew up, I'm 59. I know I look 22, but I'm older than you think.

Renae Hanvin (17:34):

Well, 22. I've

David Sanderson (17:35):

Been

Renae Hanvin (17:35):

There for a

David Sanderson (17:36):

Conversation. I've got a special lens of my thing. But I don't know if you're the same. When I was growing up, I thought, right, our generation's going to fix it. I was lucky enough to grow up at a time when things were getting better on almost every metric, and of course we're going to fix it. I mean, by my late middle age of being 38 years old, of course we'll have it all fixed. And we're living in a time now where things are going backwards on almost every metric. And that's a fact that may be with us for a time. It may shift. It probably will do because that's the pendulums of history. But right now, we're living in a time where we all get it, but we need to do different things. And if there's any silver lining to what's happening in the world, if it's more about personal territories, if you like, rather than global consensus, maybe there's something about communities being more in driving seats, actually around that, around saying it's about me, not about you kind of thing as a society and communities, maybe there's some space in that to say, "Yeah, we're going to do this libraries as Daniel and you talk about as a ... " Well, not just a metaphor, as a reality around convening place or the pub or the coffee shop or whatever it might be or the mosque or you name it, that actually it's around that and it's a reassertion of localization of power.

(18:44):

And that's actually where the gold is when it comes to better recovery.

Renae Hanvin (18:49):

Yeah, a hundred percent. I think again, when Professor Aldrich and I went around Australia to create the national framework, the pub was number one. And in fact, Bunnings, which we didn't, we haven't included corporate brands, but Bunnings, that was the place ever. Bunnings and the pub were the two main places and libraries. So I think that's a big focus of what we're trying to do with the social infrastructure side is those places and spaces in the communities that are important to the communities, they should be important to government as well. So if you're going to come and invest in something or run some programs to build capability, do it at the pub or do it at Bunnings or do it at the place where the communities wants to be. And you're going to save somewhere,

David Sanderson (19:33):

Save the pub. Tell you, me and my friends regularly worship at Bunnings. I need to buy one nail. Good. I can go to Bunnings.

Renae Hanvin (19:40):

A hundred percent. That's the same as me too. In fact, I've got a little gift card there ready and waiting for me. So David, I always like to end with the same question. So the podcast doing disasters differently. So I'm sure you're going to struggle to pick two, but what two things would you like to be done differently in the disaster space?

David Sanderson (19:59):

That at state and federal level in Australia and in New South Wales andever else in the world, because I know you get a followership across the world, that it's very boring. This is an HR issue actually, that your job description rewards process and prioritizes effectiveness over efficiency. So I've got to be in my bonnet about this. I was thinking about this recently. So there are five metrics, there are lots of them, lots of different metrics where more successes. Delivery is wrongly equated with being efficient. A success, yeah. Effective. And effective means taking time. Good friends in the RA and the Reconstruction Authority in New South Wales. I won't name them out of embarrassing them and Julie, but well, yeah, actually I will actually. Heidi Stratford, who's a senior manager there for many years, the amount of energy she puts into engaging with people and doing things in going places and the rest, and that can come at the disservice to your job because you're not rewarded for that.

(21:03):

And because she's on the side of the angels and many other people are, believe in it. But again, those line managers are not evil monsters. They're reporting to the ministers who are not evil monsters, but actually say, "No, we need to deliver this by then." And they're not wrong, but it takes time to use the cliche, it's the iceberg, it's all the stuff under it. And if you ignore that, it'll knock you over when you sell into it.

Renae Hanvin (21:27):

Oh, a hundred percent. And I use the term too, I'm only interested in outcomes. I'm not interested in outputs because I can do anything. Just the long term. I don't care about the output. I care about the outcome. So that's everything that we do. That's what we're focused on. I love it. And what's the second one? Is there one more?

David Sanderson (21:43):

Well, I'll build on what you just said actually. Yeah. In humanitarian aid world, the project management tool is called a logical framework analysis, lock frame. And that was developed by NASA about getting rockets to the moon and the project stops at the output. I'm dovetailing off what you just said. Not wrongly, as it were. It stops from the output. The immediacy of the deliverable based on the money you've put in. Great, good. But the outcome could be totally different. So having the timeframe, the thing, the long-termism, we need more people in positions of power with the guts to say no, we need to be long-term. And there are lots of good people. Our current minister is incredibly good at that, thinking long-term, Janelle Saffin, about thinking of long-term investments again on the side of the angels. That can be a voice that's not heard very often.

Renae Hanvin (22:33):

She is wonderful. I actually have a catch up with her in a couple of weeks. She's been connecting with her about business resilience in the region for many,

David Sanderson (22:39):

Many

Renae Hanvin (22:39):

Years. She's wonderful.

David Sanderson (22:41):

Yes. Three hats. Does them all well?

Renae Hanvin (22:43):

Yeah. And as you said, absolute angel in the space. I could literally talk to you all day. I'm so excited and appreciative that you have taken the time to chat with me here. Thank you. So I was saying before, I don't think we've ever met in person actually. I think

David Sanderson (22:57):

We've

Renae Hanvin (22:58):

Always just been virtual and lots of invitations to events, but we haven't managed to cross

David Sanderson (23:02):

Paths. I've been fun boying though for a longtime though, so very nice to meet you.

Renae Hanvin (23:05):

Well, same, same. So hopefully in 2026, we get to meet in person. But David Sanderson, thank you so much for talking with me. Please everyone jump onto howwsurvive.com. It is awesome. If you've got people who would like to leave their stories, et cetera, if you want to bring it to your country from somewhere else in the world, please do. So awesome to talk to you and we'll catch up soon, I hope. Thank

David Sanderson (23:28):

You, Renee. Thank you so much.

Renae Hanvin (23:38):

I hope today's episode of Doing Disasters Differently, the podcast has inspired you to think a little bit differently about the role you can play before, during, and after disasters. Given the new era of more frequent and compounding disasters that we are now in, let's work together to build an all hazards disaster resilient future for all. Find out more about the work I'm leading as a social enterprise, building disaster resilience at resilientready.org. Don't forget to subscribe to doing disasters differently than podcast through your preferred platform. And we'll see you next time when we discover new ways of doing disasters differently together.