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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Social impact of disasters > General
This book presents current research in the study of the devastating
earthquake which occurred in Haiti in 2010. Topics discussed
include the crisis and response as a result of the Haiti
earthquake; charitable contributions for Haiti's earthquake
victims; the Haitian economy and HOPE Act; FY2010 supplemental for
disaster assistance and Haiti relief and the U.S. immigration
policy on Haitian migrants.
The transformative event known as "Katrina" exposed long-standing
social inequalities. While debates rage about race and class
relations in New Orleans and the Katrina diaspora, gender remains
curiously absent from public discourse and scholarly analysis. This
volume draws on original research and firsthand narratives from
women in diverse economic, political, ethnic, and geographic
contexts to portray pre-Katrina vulnerabilities, gender concerns in
post-disaster housing and assistance, and women's collective
struggles to recover from this catastrophe.
A global catastrophic risk is one with the potential to wreak death
and destruction on a global scale. In human history, wars and
plagues have done so on more than one occasion, and misguided
ideologies and totalitarian regimes have darkened an entire era or
a region. Advances in technology are adding dangers of a new kind.
It could happen again.
In Global Catastrophic Risks 25 leading experts look at the gravest
risks facing humanity in the 21st century, including asteroid
impacts, gamma-ray bursts, Earth-based natural catastrophes,
nuclear war, terrorism, global warming, biological weapons,
totalitarianism, advanced nanotechnology, general artificial
intelligence, and social collapse. The book also addresses
over-arching issues - policy responses and methods for predicting
and managing catastrophes.
This is invaluable reading for anyone interested in the big issues
of our time; for students focusing on science, society, technology,
and public policy; and for academics, policy-makers, and
professionals working in these acutely important fields.
The world is becoming more hazardous as natural and social
processes combine to create complex situations of increased
vulnerability and risk. There is increasing recognition that this
trend is creating exigencies that must be dealt with. The common
approach is to delegate the task of preparing an emergency plan to
someone. Often that person is expected to get on with job but
rarely is the means and instruction of how to write such a plan
provided to them. There are a host of instances in which the letter
of the law, not the spirit, is honoured by providing a token plan
of little validity. David Alexander provides, in this book, the
assistance needed to write an emergency plan. It is a practical
'how to' manual and guide aimed at managers in business, civil
protection officers, civil security officials, civil defence
commanders, neighbourhood leaders and disaster managers who have
been tasked with writing, reviewing or preparing emergency plans
for all kinds of emergency, disaster or catastrophe. He takes the
reader through the process of writing an emergency plan, step by
step, starting with the rationale and context, before moving on
through the stages of writing and activating a basic, generic
emergency plan and concludes with information on specific kinds of
plan, for example, for hospitals and cultural heritage sites. This
practical guide also provides a core for postgraduate training in
emergency management and has been written in such a way that it is
not tied to the legal constraints of any particular jurisdiction.
Why was the UK so unprepared for the pandemic, suffering one of the
highest death rates and worst economic contractions of the major
world economies in 2020? Hilary Cooper and Simon Szreter reveal the
deep roots of our vulnerability and set out a powerful manifesto
for change post-Covid-19. They argue that our commitment to a
flawed neoliberal model and the associated disinvestment in our
social fabric left the UK dangerously exposed and unable to mount
an effective response. This is not at all what made Britain great.
The long history of the highly innovative universal welfare system
established by Elizabeth I facilitated both the industrial
revolution and, when revived after 1945, the postwar Golden Age of
rising prosperity. Only by learning from that past can we create
the fairer, nurturing and empowering society necessary to tackle
the global challenges that lie ahead - climate change, biodiversity
collapse and global inequality.
In November 2019, a new strain of coronavirus appeared in Wuhan,
China, and quickly spread across the world. Since then, the
pandemic has exposed the brutal limits of care and health under
capitalism. Pandemonium underscores the turning-points between
neoliberalism and authoritarian government, crystallised by
ineffective responses to the pandemic. In so doing, it questions
capitalist understandings of order and disorder, of health and
disease, and the new world borders which proliferate through
distinctly capitalist definitions of risk and uncertainty. From the
origins of the crisis at the crossroads of fossil-fuelled pollution
and the privatisation of healthcare in China, Angela Mitropoulos
follows the virus' spread as governments embraced reckless
strategies of 'containment' and 'herd immunity.' Exoticist
explanations of the pandemic and the recourse to quarantines and
travel bans racialised the disease, while the reluctance to expand
healthcare capacity displaced the risk onto private households and
private wealth. Tracing iterations of borders through the histories
of population theory, the political contract and epidemiology,
Mitropoulos discusses the circuits of capitalist value in
pharmaceuticals, protective equipment and catastrophe bonds. These
and the treatment of populations as capitalist 'stock' in demands
to 'reopen the economy' reveal a world where the very definition of
'the economy' and infrastructure are fundamentally shifting. Much
will depend on how these are understood, and debts are reckoned, in
the months and years to come.
An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool
University Press website and through Knowledge Unlatched. Haitian
writers have made profound contributions to debates about the
converging paths of political and natural histories, yet their
reflections on the legacies of colonialism, imperialism, and
neoliberalism are often neglected in heated disputes about the
future of human life on the planet. The 2010 earthquake only
exacerbated this contradiction. Despite the fact that Haitian
authors have long treated the connections between political
violence, precariousness, and ecological degradation, in media
coverage around the world, the earthquake would have suddenly
exposed scandalous conditions on the ground in Haiti. This book
argues that contemporary Haitian literature historicizes the
political and environmental problems brought to the surface by the
earthquake by building on texts of earlier generations, especially
at the end of the Duvalier era and its aftermath. Informed by
Haitian studies and models of postcolonial ecocriticism, the book
conceives of literature as an "eco-archive," or a body of texts
that depicts ecological change over time and its impact on social
and environmental justice. Focusing equally on established and less
well-known authors, the book contends that the eco-archive
challenges future-oriented, universalizing narratives of the
Anthropocene and the global refugee crisis with portrayals of
different forms and paths of migration and refuge within Haiti and
around the Americas.
From award-winning ABC News Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman, and written using exclusive interviews and information comes the definitive account of the dramatic story that gripped the world: the miracle rescue of twelve boys and their soccer coach trapped in a flooded cave miles underground for nearly three
weeks-a pulse-pounding page-turner by a reporter who was there every step of their journey out.
After a practice in June 2018, a Thai soccer coach took a dozen of his young players to explore a famous but flood-prone cave. It was one of the boys' birthday, but neither he nor the dozen resurfaced. Worried parents and rescuers flocked to the mouth of a cave that seemed to have swallowed the boys without a trace. Ranging in age from eleven to sixteen, the boys were all members of the Wild Boars soccer team. When water unexpectedly inundated the cave, blocking their escape, they retreated deeper inside, taking shelter in a side cavern. While the world feared them dead, the thirteen young souls survived by licking the condensation off the cave's walls, meditating, and huddling together for warmth. In this thrilling account, ABC News Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman recounts this amazing story in depth and from every angle, exploring their time in the cave, the failed plans and human mistakes that nearly doomed them, and the daring mission that ultimately saved them.
Gutman introduces the elite team of volunteer divers who risked death to execute a plan so risky that its American planners admitted, "for us, success would have meant getting just one boy out alive." He takes you inside the meetings where life and death decisions were grimly made and describes how these heroes pulled off an improbable rescue under immense pressure, with the boys' desperate parents and the entire world watching. One of the largest rescues in history was in doubt until the very last moment. Matt Gutman covered the story intensively, went deep inside the caves himself, and interviewed dozens of rescuers, experts and eye-witnessed around the world.
The result is this pulse-pounding page-turner that vividly recreates this extraordinary event in all its intensity-and documents the ingenuity and sacrifice it took to succeed.
Stella Adler (1901-92) trained many well-known American actors yet
throughout much of her career, her influence was overshadowed by
Lee Strasberg, director of the Actors Studio. In Beyond Method:
Stella Adler and the Male Actor, Scott Balcerzak focuses on Adler's
teachings and how she challenged Strasberg's psychological focus on
the actor's ""self"" by promoting an empathetic and socially
engaged approach to performance. Employing archived studio
transcripts and recordings, Balcerzak examines Adler's lessons in
technique, characterization, and script analysis as they reflect
the background of the teacher-illustrating her time studying with
Constantin Stanislavski, her Yiddish Theatre upbringing, and her
encyclopedic knowledge of drama. Through this lens, Beyond Method
resituates the performances of some of her famous male students
through an expansive understanding of the discourses of acting. The
book begins by providing an overview of the gender and racial
classifications associated with the male ""Method"" actor and
discussing white maleness in the mid-twentieth century. The first
chapter explores the popular press's promotion of ""Method"" stars
during the 1950s as an extension of Strasberg's rise in celebrity.
At the same time, Adler's methodology was defining actor
performance as a form of social engagement-rather than just
personal expression-welcoming an analysis of onscreen masculinity
as culturally-fluid. The chapters that follow serve as case studies
of some of Adler's most famous students in notable roles-Marlon
Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and The Missouri Breaks
(1976), Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976), Henry Winkler in
Happy Days (1974-84), and Mark Ruffalo in The Avengers: Age of
Ultron (2015). Balcerzak concludes that the presence of Adler
altered the trajectory of onscreen maleness through a promotion of
a relatively complex view of gender identity not found in other
classrooms. Beyond Method considers Stella Adler as not only an
effective teacher of acting but also an engaging and original
thinker, providing us a new way to consider performances of
maleness on the screen. Film and theater scholars, as well as those
interested in gender studies, are sure to benefit from this
thorough study.
It's the future. But only slightly. There are blackouts. No one
knows what's causing them, but that doesn't stop people going
missing in them. Now Steph and Bell, a schoolgirl and barmaid, have
to search for their missing friend, until the outside world starts
infecting the theatre that stands around them. Schoolgirl Steph
walks into the seedy, empty bar where Bell works. Bell is dressed
with everything short and low, and there are no longer any regulars
at her bar. Whatever has happened to create this dystopian world
remains a mystery, but we learn that there are frequent blackouts,
people regularly go missing and women are being killed. Steph is
looking for her friend Charlotte, a girl who also at some point
walked into Bell's bar but then went missing. The relationship
between Bell and Charlotte is unclear, as her conversations with
Steph shift between truth, lies and fantasy. In this tense
atmosphere, where there is a sense of growing fear, the play
"forces the audience to turn detective not just to track down the
elusive Charlotte but also to find meaning itself" (The Guardian).
A Girl in a School Uniform (Walks into a Bar) is the third play by
award-winning playwright Lulu Raczka and was produced at the West
Yorkshire Playhouse in 2017 and the New Diorama Theatre in 2018.
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, outsiders will have two versions
of the Katrina experience. One version will be the images they
recall from news coverage of the aftermath. The other will be the
intimate portrayal of the determination of New Orleans residents to
rebuild and recover their lives. HBO's Treme offers outsiders an
inside look into why New Orleanians refused to abandon a place that
many questioned should not be rebuilt after the levees failed. This
critically acclaimed series expanded the boundaries of television
making in its format, plot, casting, use of music, and
realism-in-fictionalized-TV. However, Treme is not just a story for
the outside gaze on New Orleans. It was a very local, collaborative
experience where the show's creators sought to enlist the city in a
commemorative project. Treme allowed many in the city who worked as
principals, extras, and who tuned in as avid viewers to heal from
the devastation of the disaster as they experimented with art,
imitating life, imitating art. This book examines the impact of
HBOs Treme not just as television making, but in the sense in which
television provides a window to our worlds. The book pulls together
scholarship in media, communications, gender, area studies,
political economy, critical studies, African American studies and
music to explain why Treme was not just about television.
With wit, humor, and an infectious love of astronomy that could win
over even the science-phobic, this fun and fascinating book reminds
us that outer space is anything but remote. The scientist behind
the popular website badastronomy.com, Philip Plait presents some of
the most fearsome end-of-the-world calamities (for instance,
incoming asteroids and planet-swallowing black holes), demystifies
the scientific principles at work behind them, and gives us the
odds that any of them will step out of the realm of sci-fi to
disrupt our quiet corner of the cosmos. The result is a book that
is both terrifying and entertaining?a tour of the violent universe
we live in, written with an enthusiasm that every stargazer will
appreciate.
Administration and the Other examines the social construction of
groups of people and resultant policy impacts in the discourse of
the American Republic from before its founding to the present. The
book suggests that from pre-revolutionary interactions between
early colonialists and Native Americans to recent immigration
debates, discourse on The Other has resulted in the development of
policies that have led to further marginalization, community
division, and harm to scores of innocents within the public sphere.
Ultimately, Administration and the Other examines the construction
of The Other from a sociological and historical framework to engage
students and scholars of political and administrative processes in
using the often unspoken history of the field, as part of a larger
historical framework, to explore how policy has been shaped in
relation to marginalized communities. By presenting elements of
history that are frequently not entered into the administrative and
political discourse, the book aims to frame a conversation that
might lead to the integration of thoughts about the often
marginalized Other into discussions of policy-making and
policy-implementation processes.
Disaster can strike without notice. In a split-second the forces
of nature, human intervention, or a simple twist of fate can place
lives in jeopardy. A ship sinks, a plane crashes, a child wanders
deep into the forest. Death is imminent, except for the bravery and
persistence of small groups of men and women who enter these dark
frontiers as rescuers. They fail sometimes. But often they return
with the near dead, plucking them from the hungry jaws of disaster.
Written by veteran newsman Dean Beeby, "Deadly Frontiers: Disaster
and Rescue on Canada's Atlantic Seaboard" tells the stories of
real-life heroes, and of the bureaucracy and bungling that threaten
their lives and those they have sworn to save.
In "Deadly Frontiers," Dean Beeby deals with the chilling
question of Canada's preparedness for disaster, as he investigates
the most significant events in the contemporary history of search
and rescue. Canada occupies a unique position in the rarified world
of search and rescue. The second-largest country on the planet,
Canada has three jagged coastlines, an immense internal wilderness,
and a vast Arctic to swallow hapless travellers. Since the Second
World War, Canada's East Coast has been the crucible for modern
search-and-rescue techniques and equipment. This hard-won
experience has been driven mostly by disaster, from the 1982
sinking of the Ocean Ranger oil rig off Newfoundland to numerous
cargo-vessel disappearances in the 1990s, including the "Protektor,
Gold Bond Conveyor, Marika," and "Vanessa." Ground search and
rescue, a special branch of this culture, was reborn in 1986 during
the protracted search for a lost child in the forests north of
Halifax. Swissair Flight 111 plunged into waters off Peggy's Cove,
Nova Scotia in 1998, triggering a massive search-and-recovery
effort, as well as a fundamental rethinking of emergency response.
The worst disaster within the search-and-rescue community itself
was the 1998 crash in Quebec of a Labrador helicopter from
Greenwood, Nova Scotia, leaving six rescue specialists dead among
the charred wreckage.
In "Deadly Frontiers," author Dean Beeby examines official
documents, forensic evidence, and the personal histories of those
involved in these cases and more. His book is a frank examination
of how Canada's tragedies and triumphs have helped forge a
professional search-and-rescue culture that is second to none.
What is the role of folklore in the discussion of catastrophe and
trauma? How do disaster survivors use language, ritual, and the
material world to articulate their experiences? What insights and
tools can the field of folkloristics offer survivors for navigating
and narrating disaster and its aftermath? Can folklorists
contribute to broader understandings of empathy and the roles of
listening in ethnographic work? We Are All Survivors is a
collection of essays exploring the role of folklore in the wake of
disaster. Contributors include scholars from the United States and
Japan who have long worked with disaster-stricken communities or
are disaster survivors themselves; individual chapters address
Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Maria, and two earthquakes in Japan,
including the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster of 2011.
Adapted from a 2017 special issue of Fabula (from the International
Society for Folk Narrative Research), the book includes a revised
introduction, an additional chapter with original illustrations,
and a new conclusion considering how folklorists are documenting
the COVID-19 pandemic. We Are All Survivors bears witness to
survivors' expressions of remembrance, grieving, and healing.
The Impact of Natural Disasters on Systemic Political and Social
Inequities in the U.S. examines how natural disasters impact social
inequality in the United States. The contributors cover topics such
as criminal justice, demographics, economics, history, political
science, and sociology to show how effects of natural disasters
vary by social and economic class in the United States. This volume
studies social and political mechanisms in disaster response and
relief that enable natural disasters to worsen inequalities in
America and offers potential solutions.
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