Suchergebnisse

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter One Disasters of Development -- Chapter Two Understanding Resistance -- Chapter Three The People in the Way -- Chapter Four Contested Landscapes -- Chapter Five Challenging the Economics of Displacement -- Chapter Six The Lake of Memory -- Chapter Seven Confronting Goliath -- Chapter Eight The Risks and Results of Resistance to Resettlement -- Bibliography -- Index

The advent of climate change is now increasing awareness of the potential of the intensifying peril and frequency of hurricanes for island and coastal dwellers. Considering current demographic data on migration, residence and development, the climatological findings regarding hurricane frequency, intensity, precipitation, and size become particularly menacing. However, despite the intensification and frequency of hurricanes, recognition of the social construction of risk and disasters requires that greater attention be paid to the social and economic drivers of the conditions of exposure and vulnerability that characterize coastal and island communities. The intersection of increasingly intense and frequent hurricanes associated with climate change is discussed in the context of patterns of social, demographic and economic change in the state of Florida in the United States which is located on many of the major paths of hurricanes generated in the Atlantic basin. The paper concludes with an assessment of the role that anthropologists must play in research, practice and policy making reducing the risk of disasters related to hurricane impact.

This article reviews the conceptual development of the disaster risk reduction perspective in research in general as well as its formalization as an instrument of policy and practice at the international level. I also review current programmatic applications of disaster risk reduction in research and policy fora and assay key anthropological contributions to risk reduction policies and practice. I also consider the links between disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, as the possible trajectories of these phenomena are as intimately bound to one another as are their root causes. Finally, I discuss some of the major critiques of the application or lack thereof of disaster risk reduction in the context of critical discussions of contemporary understandings of risk and development.

AbstractThis article approaches the problem of environment and migration through a consideration of convergent themes regarding nature and society in ecological theory and in social scientific disaster research. The paper argues that the articulation between ecological and social theory provides grounding concepts for both framing the issue and research on the problem of actual and potential mass displacement of human populations by environmental change, specifically global climate change. This article asserts that effective policy responses to environmental displacement and migration cannot be developed without an in‐depth understanding of the phenomena of climate change, human‐environment relations, and migration and the linkages among them. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

ABSTRACT  In the increasing frequency and intensity of disasters over the last quarter century, the work of Gregory Button, whose background is in both journalism and anthropology, has focused on telling the story of affected peoples but also "studying up" to reveal the political and economic interests and structures that unnecessarily render people vulnerable and turn hazards into disasters. These tasks have become more difficult in today's climate of increasing corporate power and, despite rhetoric to the contrary, decreasing transparency. His work clearly demonstrates how vested interests use the strategic deployment, contestation, and sequestration of knowledge and information to disguise and evade culpability, responsibility, and liability. Melding journalism, academic scholarship, and policy analysis, Button provides a critical counterbalance to highly politicized and produced information that seeks to negate, erase, and otherwise diminish the lived experience of disaster‐affected peoples.

▪ Abstract  Recent perspectives in anthropological research define a disaster as a process/event involving the combination of a potentially destructive agent(s) from the natural and/or technological environment and a population in a socially and technologically produced condition of vulnerability. From this basic understanding three general topical areas have developed: (a) a behavioral and organizational response approach, (b) a social change approach, and (c) a political economic/environmental approach, focusing on the historical-structural dimensions of vulnerability to hazards, particularly in the developing world. Applied anthropological contributions to disaster management are discussed as well as research on perception and assessment of hazard risk. The article closes with a discussion of potentials in hazard and disaster research for theory building in anthropology, particularly in issues of human-environment relations and sociocultural change.

Examines general trends and discusses three cases of resistance to relocation due to river dam construction projects in Canada, Bangladesh, and Brazil.