Marginality and Disaster

Marginality and Disaster PDF Author: J. C. Gaillard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138805620
Category : Disaster relief
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Disasters primarily hit places which, at different scales, are marginalised in everyday life, such as prisons, slums and peripheral cities. In addition, those affected are often from marginalised segments of society, such as the poor, children, elderly, people with disabilities. Many disasters are unacknowledged by those with more wealth and power, leading to many events to be neglected and marginalised by policy makers and practitioners of disaster risk reduction. This book offers an integrated overview of these issues and provides a conceptual framing of the multiple, tangled and complex interactions between marginality and disaster. It explores marginal places through case studies of slum settlements and prisons, and marginalised social groups, including gender minorities and homeless people. It also discusses why and how some events are neglected and marginalised by stakeholders of disaster risk reduction. The book offers an integrated and inclusive framework for taking back marginal places, marginal people and marginal events at the core of disaster risk reduction, and further provides examples of tools which could enable the implementation of such framework. This book thus focuses on places, people and events which are seldom addressed in the literature elsewhere, such as small-scale disasters, thus providing a unique overview of disasters and their effects. It analyses the root, structural and largely exogenous (to places and people affected) causes of marginality and disasters. The argument however moves beyond this sole bleak picture of vulnerability to also portrait resistance and hope through the concept of capacities, which emphasises that those marginalised and living in marginal places display knowledge, skills and resources in facing hazards and disasters, including small-scale events.

The Invention of Disaster

The Invention of Disaster PDF Author: JC Gaillard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317617320
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
This theoretical contribution argues that the domination of Western knowledge in disaster scholarship has allowed normative policies and practices of disaster risk reduction to be imposed all over the world. It takes a postcolonial approach to unpack why scholars claim that disasters are social constructs while offering little but theories, concepts and methods supposed to be universal in understanding the unique and diverse experiences of millions of people across very different cultures. It further challenges forms of governments inherited from the Enlightenment that have been rolled out as standard and ultimate solutions to reduce the risk of disaster. Ultimately, the book encourages the emergence of a more diverse set of world views/senses and ways of knowing for both studying disasters and informing policy and practice of disaster risk reduction. Such pluralism is essential to better reflect local realities of what disasters actually are around the world. This book is an essential read for scholars and postgraduate students interested in disaster studies as well as policy-makers and practitioners of disaster risk reduction.

Marginality and Disaster

Marginality and Disaster PDF Author: J. C. Gaillard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138805620
Category : Disaster relief
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book

Book Description
Disasters primarily hit places which, at different scales, are marginalised in everyday life, such as prisons, slums and peripheral cities. In addition, those affected are often from marginalised segments of society, such as the poor, children, elderly, people with disabilities. Many disasters are unacknowledged by those with more wealth and power, leading to many events to be neglected and marginalised by policy makers and practitioners of disaster risk reduction. This book offers an integrated overview of these issues and provides a conceptual framing of the multiple, tangled and complex interactions between marginality and disaster. It explores marginal places through case studies of slum settlements and prisons, and marginalised social groups, including gender minorities and homeless people. It also discusses why and how some events are neglected and marginalised by stakeholders of disaster risk reduction. The book offers an integrated and inclusive framework for taking back marginal places, marginal people and marginal events at the core of disaster risk reduction, and further provides examples of tools which could enable the implementation of such framework. This book thus focuses on places, people and events which are seldom addressed in the literature elsewhere, such as small-scale disasters, thus providing a unique overview of disasters and their effects. It analyses the root, structural and largely exogenous (to places and people affected) causes of marginality and disasters. The argument however moves beyond this sole bleak picture of vulnerability to also portrait resistance and hope through the concept of capacities, which emphasises that those marginalised and living in marginal places display knowledge, skills and resources in facing hazards and disasters, including small-scale events.

The Disaster Profiteers

The Disaster Profiteers PDF Author: John C. Mutter
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1137278986
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
In the tradition of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, a leading geoscientist argues that natural disasters too often push the modern world towards more extremes of inequality

Men, Masculinities and Disaster

Men, Masculinities and Disaster PDF Author: Elaine Enarson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317390237
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
In the examination of gender as a driving force in disasters, too little attention has been paid to how women’s or men’s disaster experiences relate to the wider context of gender inequality, or how gender-just practice can help prevent disasters or address climate change at a structural level. With a foreword from Kenneth Hewitt, an afterword from Raewyn Connell and contributions from renowned international experts, this book helps address the gap. It explores disasters in diverse environmental, hazard, political and cultural contexts through original research and theoretical reflection, building on the under-utilized orientation of critical men’s studies. This body of thought, not previously applied in disaster contexts, explores how men gain, maintain and use power to assert control over women. Contributing authors examine the gender terrain of disasters 'through men's eyes,' considering how diverse forms of masculinities shape men’s efforts to respond to and recover from disasters and other climate challenges. The book highlights both the high costs paid by many men in disasters and the consequences of dominant masculinity practices for women and marginalized men. It concludes by examining how disaster risk can be reduced through men's diverse efforts to challenge hierarchies around gender, sexuality, disability, age and culture.

Heat Wave

Heat Wave PDF Author: Eric Klinenberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022627621X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
The “compelling” story behind the 1995 Chicago weather disaster that killed hundreds—and what it revealed about our broken society (Boston Globe). On July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index—how the temperature actually feels on the body—would hit 126. When the heat wave broke a week later, city streets had buckled; records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids had failed, leaving residents without electricity for up to two days. By July 20, over seven hundred people had perished—twenty times the number of those struck down by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Heat waves kill more Americans than all other natural disasters combined. Until now, no one could explain either the overwhelming number or the heartbreaking manner of the deaths resulting from the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Meteorologists and medical scientists have been unable to account for the scale of the trauma, and political officials have puzzled over the sources of the city’s vulnerability. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a “social autopsy,” examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been. He investigates why some neighborhoods experienced greater mortality than others, how city government responded, and how journalists, scientists, and public officials reported and explained these events. Through years of fieldwork, interviews, and research, he uncovers the surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown that contributed to this human catastrophe as hundreds died alone behind locked doors and sealed windows, out of contact with friends, family, community groups, and public agencies. As this incisive and gripping account demonstrates, the widening cracks in the social foundations of American cities made visible by the 1995 heat wave remain in play in America’s cities today—and we ignore them at our peril. Includes photos and a new preface on meeting the challenges of climate change in urban centers “Heat Wave is not so much a book about weather, as it is about the calamitous consequences of forgetting our fellow citizens. . . . A provocative, fascinating book, one that applies to much more than weather disasters.” —Chicago Sun-Times “It’s hard to put down Heat Wave without believing you’ve just read a tale of slow murder by public policy.” —Salon “A classic. I can’t recommend it enough.” —Chris Hayes

Extreme Cities

Extreme Cities PDF Author: Ashley Dawson
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784780367
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
A cutting exploration of how cities drive climate change while being on the frontlines of the coming climate crisis How will climate change affect our lives? Where will its impacts be most deeply felt? Are we doing enough to protect ourselves from the coming chaos? In Extreme Cities, Ashley Dawson argues that cities are ground zero for climate change, contributing the lion’s share of carbon to the atmosphere, while also lying on the frontlines of rising sea levels. Today, the majority of the world’s megacities are located in coastal zones, yet few of them are adequately prepared for the floods that will increasingly menace their shores. Instead, most continue to develop luxury waterfront condos for the elite and industrial facilities for corporations. These not only intensify carbon emissions, but also place coastal residents at greater risk when water levels rise. In Extreme Cities, Dawson offers an alarming portrait of the future of our cities, describing the efforts of Staten Island, New York, and Shishmareff, Alaska residents to relocate; Holland’s models for defending against the seas; and the development of New York City before and after Hurricane Sandy. Our best hope lies not with fortified sea walls, he argues. Rather, it lies with urban movements already fighting to remake our cities in a more just and equitable way. As much a harrowing study as a call to arms Extreme Cities is a necessary read for anyone concerned with the threat of global warming, and of the cities of the world.

At Risk

At Risk PDF Author: Piers Blaikie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134528612
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
The term 'natural disaster' is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes or floods. However, the phrase 'natural disaster' suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth. At Risk questions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed. The updated new edition confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream 'development'. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant 'root causes' to 'unsafe conditions' in a 'progression of vulnerability'. The other uses the concepts of 'access' and 'livelihood' to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. Examining key natural events and incorporating strategies to create a safer world, this revised edition is an important resource for those involved in the fields of environment and development studies.

How Ethnically Marginalized Americans Cope with Catastrophic Disasters

How Ethnically Marginalized Americans Cope with Catastrophic Disasters PDF Author: Jason David Rivera
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780773436442
Category : Cross-cultural studies
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
How Ethnically Marginalized Americans Cope with Catastrophic Disasters : Studies in Sufering and Resiliency

Empowerment and Social Justice in the Wake of Disasters

Empowerment and Social Justice in the Wake of Disasters PDF Author: Sara Bondesson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000756874
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 77

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Book Description
This book taps into discussions about social vulnerability, empowerment, and resistance in relation to disaster relief and recovery. It disentangles tensions and dilemmas within post-disaster empowerment, through a rich ethnographic narrative of the work of Occupy Sandy in Rockaway, New York City, after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It details both a remarkable collaborative relief phase, in which marginalized communities were empowered to take active part, as well as a phase of conflict and resistance that came about as relief turned to long-term recovery. This volume particularly aims to understand how community empowerment processes can breach pre-disaster marginalization in the aftermath of disasters. It connects with broader emancipatory literature on dilemmas involved in empowerment ‘from the outside’. In a future of potentially harsher climate related disasters and increased social vulnerability for certain communities, this book contributes to a full and nuanced understanding of community empowerment and vulnerability reduction. This book will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, political scientists, and urban studies researchers, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in disaster management, disaster risk reduction, social vulnerability, community empowerment, development studies, local studies, social work, community-based work, and emancipatory theory.

Mental Health and Disasters

Mental Health and Disasters PDF Author: Yuval Neria
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521883873
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Book Description
A reference on mental health and disasters, focused on the full spectrum of psychopathologies associated with many different types of disasters.