Descolonización de la ciencia de los desastres: Enfoques desde Latinoamérica y Caribe

This brief introduction to the special issue "Decolonization of disaster science: Approaches from Latin America and the Caribbean" (Vol. 5, No. 2) seeks to promote the plurality of knowledge by assessing local ontologies and epistemologies. Ultimately, this look at how decolonize studies and how transcend 'well-established' Western approaches, sources, concepts, methodologies, values and even languages, which are predominantly foreign views to the disaster and risk hotspots affecting the region. Some of the topics addressed in the special issue include: Latin American social thought in the face of disasters and epidemics; decolonization of the science of disasters; worldviews, knowledge of oppressed peoples and alternative knowledge in disaster research; ecology of knowledge; anthropology of disasters; sociology of disasters; new geopolitics and biopolitics in disasters and pandemics; development models and social production of disaster risks; processes of violation, forms of oppression, inequality and poverty in disasters; structural and environmental racism in disasters; ‘invisible’ disasters and oppressed peoples; disaster capitalism; dimensions of power in the social production of risks and disasters; disaster ethics; among others.