Greg Bankoff works on the historical dimension of how societies adapt to risk and how the past may provide models and practices for disaster risk reduction management and policy in the present. For the last 25 years, he has focused his research primarily on how societies have learnt to normalise risk and the manner in which communities deal with crisis through a historical sociological approach that combines archival analysis with fieldwork, community mapping, interviews and focus groups.

He has published more than 100 referred journal articles and book chapters and eight books. His most recent publications include co-authoring The Red Cross’s World Disaster Report 2014: Focussing on Culture and Risk, a companion coedited volume entitled Cultures and Disasters: Understanding Cultural Framings in Disaster Risk Reduction (2015) and most recently a further edited volume on Natural Hazards and Peoples in the Indian Ocean World: Bordering on Danger (2016). An historical geographer, he is Professor of Modern History based at the University of Hull.