Pursuing diversity in disaster management: the Korean experience

Developed nations have made efforts toward diversity during globalisation, according to an analysis of costs and benefits. However, Korean researchers have not thoroughly discussed disaster management. This study examined how Korea should incorporate diversity in the final goal of disaster management. Qualitative content analysis including inference was used to compare the finger-pointing and survival-hugging approaches by cross-checking four categories of diversity (sexual orientation, national origin, disability, and others) and four major stakeholders (governments, businesses, voluntary organisations, and local communities). The key theme was that Korea must change the finger-pointing approach to the survival-hugging approach while enhancing minority participation, whole-community engagement, new sub-topics, and education, as well as each stakeholder's assigned role. The biggest value of this research is that it investigated diversity in Korea more rigorously than previous studies.