Developing understanding of vulnerability transfer related to multiple hazards and social, economic and political factors in Darjeeling, West Bengal,

At this stage I have not fully developed research questions and thus a methodology. So far I have engaged comprehensively with the literature regarding the socio-political history of the Darjeeling district (as well as wider social and political processes in India), governance and governmentality, and assemblage theory. This has been done to develop a theoretical framework for the study and ultimately to inform the research questions and methodology. I hope to propose research questions by the end of August, and develop a methodology over the autumn before preparing a piece for the upgrade, which I hope to complete sometime around the new year.

Currently, I am aiming to use assemblage theory to explore the interconnected factors which both create and reduce multi-hazard disaster risk (with a particular focus on landslides) in Darjeeling. To frame this, I hope to build on the idea of a Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) assemblage proposed by Donovan (2017), and perhaps consider a 'disaster risk management' assemblage alongside this.. In Donovan's (2017), 6 key areas of this assemblage are proposed. At this stage of the literature review, the 3 component areas of 'values, ideologies and social empowerment', vulnerability and imbalances of wealth, resources and scale, and governance and governmentality appear to be the most influential in Darjeeling district. Thus, I expect my research questions to settle somewhere around these issues, though this may change.