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Why are people still so vulnerable to natural hazards, even after decades of scholarship, information raising and capacity building on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)? The answer is, in part, that some crucial aspects have been missing from these efforts. One aspect is culture. It has only been in recent years that ‘practical’DRR has gained more from an approach that sees hazards, vulnerability and resilience as social constructions. The shift to giving greater priority to the social and, as such, cultural embeddedness of risk has led to a widespread acceptance of the need to focus more on people’s interpretations, negotiations, experiences and creative adaptations to hazards when it comes to analysing, or intervening in, disasters. In short, there is now a greater appreciation of linkages between disasters and culture (s) as important elements in the social dynamics of disaster related preparedness (including mitigation …