Expanding the transdisciplinary conversation towards pluriversal distributive disaster recovery: development ethics and interculturality Johannes M. Waldm€ uller Escuela Polit  ecnica Nacional, Quito, Ecuador Abstract Purpose – From a Latin American decolonial and transdisciplinary perspective, this article expands the increasingly relevant conversation about disaster ethics, not only in depth and scope but also both interdisciplinarily and interculturally. By reviewing key points of development ethics that are closely related but underexplored, it makes the case for focusing on disaster recovery as a relevant distributive phase for improving future prevention and mitigation, while remedying long-standing injustices. Design/methodology/approach – To do so, against the backdrop of recently emerging postcolonial, decolonial and structural approaches to disaster and vulnerability studies, the article presents a theoretical conversation between decolonial studies, development ethics, intercultural practice and philosophy, and disaster ethics beyond utilitarian approaches. Findings – So far, development and disaster ethics remain worlds apart, despite their relevant convergence around the key notion of “recovery” and its underlying normative determination. This article identifies that prevailing utilitarian ethics in emergency response, in addition to their problematic universalization, have prevented further engagement with deontological and process-based principles, including a nuanced distributive sensitivity. As a result of such cross-fertilization, methodological individualism in an intercultural encounter is suggested, as well as continued engagement with pluriversal deliberation about key ethical values and notions regarding disaster risk and response. Originality/value – Calling for distributive bottom-up engagement beyond professional and academic boundaries, this article presents a new direction for decolonising disaster ethics, so far unexplored, seeking to bridge the value gap between development and disaster efforts, planning and prevention. Keywords Disaster recovery, Interculturality, Postcolonial theory, Development ethics, Disaster ethics Paper type Research paper Introduction Against the backdrop of the global Covid-19 pandemic, this article seeks to advance the conversation about a decolonial, intercultural and transdisciplinary perspective for disaster ethics, able to transcend Western-centric-related approaches, particularly predominant consequentialism. Decolonial studies (Escobar, 2002; Mignolo, 2007; Quijano and Ennis, 2000; Mora~ na et al., 2008), intercultural ethics (Schneider and Mall, 1996) and transdisciplinarity share a common goal in the sense of contributing to more just and equal, truly global, encounter of different forms of epistemology and knowledge. For this aim, emphasis is placed on the principles, rules and processes of encounter, instead of outcomes alone, more akin to utilitarianism as the most relevant form of consequentialist ethics (Eggleston and Miller, 2014). Transdisciplinary research (Bernstein, 2015; Jahn et al., 2012), as a cross-disciplinary attempt, involving policy-makers and the wider public for achieving a specific goal, is not uncommon to disaster risk studies (Cronin, 2008; Matsuura and Razak, 2019), however largely focused on the integration of science and technology within policy. Despite a predominant Western view on the issue, there is no universally shared definition of transdisciplinarity. In this article, which departs from Latin American (forensic) approaches Development ethics and interculturality The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0965-3562.htm Received 2 March 2021 Revised 23 June 2021 Accepted 20 August 2021 Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal © Emerald Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/DPM-03-2021-0069