This issue calls for rethinking sources of knowledge and learning for disaster prevention. It focuses on practitioners engaged in Disaster Risk Reduction at local level, presenting an action research programme dedicated to strengthening knowledge and learning from practice. This issue builds on Gibson and Wisner (2016) to investigate qualitatively, through the eyes of local level practitioners, mechanisms of knowledge and learning which can add to our understanding of disaster prevention. It is founded on the premise that the shared goal of secure lives and livelihoods can only be achieved where knowledge and expertise derived from local level action is respected, shared and mobilised alongside other sources. The contributions that follow here suggest that knowledge itself has to be understood differently and so, too, does the process of learning. This can lead to a greater mutual understanding of both one's own perceptions and those of others, each with their own values and justifications.