Introduction: Refreshing the ‘unnaturalness’ of natural disasters?

In this Forum we publish a collective discussion on Ilan Kelman's book Disaster by Choice: How our Actions Turn Natural Hazards into Catastrophes, released in February 2020 by OUP Oxford. Ilan Kelman is Professor of Disasters and Health at the Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, University College of London (UCL). He has a multidisciplinary profile that combines a social approach to the study of risks and disasters with a lasting public commitment to increasing the effectiveness and impact of disaster risk reduction education, and disseminating disaster research with a critical and applied stance through television and broadcast media. Indeed, his latest book is clearly aimed at the general public and pursues the objective of popularizing a message that has been the hallmark of social research on risks and disasters for almost fifty years: there is no such thing as a ‘natural’ disaster .