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Midterm Economy & Ecology
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Midterm Economy & Ecology
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E&E Mid-termToday, the dominant view on disaster is that a ‘natural’ disaster has been caused by extreme
geophysical processes. In this view, disasters are ‘natural’ and have not been influenced by
other factors, such as the political and social. Humans are not involved in this view and have
no influence on the disaster.
When you look at the ‘natural’ or the environmental changes, there are different ways of
looking at this. Checker (2005: 17) tells us of one of these views, as he uses a constructivist
approach to the environment and the ‘natural’. He argues that the environment or when a
disaster is seen as ‘natural’ may be different according to different people and what their
status or living situation is, but the consequences of such a ‘natural’ disaster or the
environment will have a real effect, no matter the way you look at it. So Checker (2005)
shows that the ‘natural’ may mean a different thing for different persons.
On the other hand, Smith (2006) argues that a ‘natural’ disaster doesn’t exist. She talks
about the different phases and aspects of a disaster, specifically hurricane Katrina, to show
that there are a lot of aspects involved in a disaster, of which the geophysical aspect is just
one of many. She argues that the political, economic and social aspects play a large role in
disasters and their consequences, instead of just the natural. Weston (2016) agrees with
this. She argues that we place the human outside of the environment, just like we ignore
human aspects of disasters when we see them as ‘natural’, while this is incorrect. She shows
the divide between human and nature, but also argues that while people see this divide, the
two are, in fact, interconnected and influence each other.
So according to Smith (2006) and Weston (2016) a ‘natural’ disaster doesn’t exist, because
there are always a lot of other aspects involved in a disaster, which is why we should make a
change away from the dominant view on disasters.
Based on the point of view that a ‘natural’ disaster does not exist, there is an alternative
theory on disasters. This alternate theory is the vulnerability theory. The vulnerability theory
argues that a disaster is “a process/event involving a combination of a potentially destructive
agent from the natural and/or technological environment and a population in a socially and
technologically produced condition of environmental vulnerability” (Anthony Oliver Smith).
This means that a disaster is no longer seen as just natural, but can include other aspects of
disasters, such as a technological aspect or a political aspect. However, Marino & Faas (2020)
argue that this theory draws attention away from political causes by making vulnerability a
characteristic of people or places, which is why climate anthropology can be another way to
change the theorization of disasters. Climate anthropology is one of the ways in which
climate change callenges us to rethink anthropology and uses, among other things,
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