Abstract/Summary

Large-scale disasters are frequently portrayed as temporally bounded, linear events after which survivors are encouraged to ‘move on’ as quickly as possible. In this article, we explore how understandings of disaster mobilities and temporalities challenge such perspectives. Drawing on empirical research undertaken on Dhuvaafaru in the Maldives, a small island uninhabited until 2009 when it was populated by people displaced by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, we examine what such understandings mean in the context of sudden population displacement followed by prolonged resettlement. The article reveals the diversity of disaster mobilities, how these reflect varied and complex temporalities of past, present and future, and how processes of disaster recovery are temporally extended, uncertain and often linger. Additionally, we show how attending to these dynamics contributes to understanding of how post-disaster settlement bring stability for some people while producing ongoing feelings of unsettlement in others.