Why did the people of the Zambesi Delta affected by severe flooding return early to their homes or even choose to not evacuate? How is the forced resettlement of small-scale farmers living along the foothills of an active volcano on the Philippines impacting on their day-to-day livelihood routines? Making sense of such questions and observations is only possible by understanding how the decision-making of societies at risk is embedded in culture, and how intervention measures acknowledge, or neglect, cultural settings. The social construction of risk is being given increasing priority in understand how people experience and prioritize hazards in their own lives and how vulnerability can be reduced, and resilience increased, at a local level.

"

Culture and Disasters "adopts an interdisciplinary approach to explore this cultural dimension of disaster, with contributions from leading international experiences within the field. Section I provides discussion of theoretical considerations and practical research to better understand the important of culture in hazards and disasters. Culture can be interpreted widely with many different perspectives; this enables us to critically consider the cultural boundedness of research itself, as well as the complexities of incorporating various interpretations into DRR. If culture is omitted, related issues of adaptation, coping, intervention, knowledge and power relations cannot be fully grasped. Section II explores what aspects of culture shape resilience? How have people operationalized culture in every day life to establish DRR practice? What constitutes a resilient culture and what role does culture play in a society s decision making? It is natural for people to seek refuge in tried and trust methods of disaster mitigation, however, culture and belief systems are constantly evolving. How these coping strategies can be introduced into DRR therefore poses a challenging question. Finally, Section III examines the effectiveness of key scientific frameworks for understanding the role of culture in disaster risk reduction and management. DRR includes a range of norms and breaking these through an understanding of cultural will challenge established theoretical and empirical frameworks. "

Contents:
Foreword Preface List of figures and tables Part 1: Framework and Theory 1. The challenge of disasters and our approach 1.1 In at the deep end 1.2 Conventional views of disaster 1.3 What is vulnerability? 1.4 Changes since the first edition 1.5 The International decade for natural disaster reduction 1.6 Convergence and critique 1.7 Audiences 1.8 Scope and plan of the book 1.9 Limits and assumptions 2. The disaster pressure and release model 2.1 The nature of vulnerability 2.2 Cause and effects in the disaster pressure model 2.3 Time and the chain of explanation 2.4 Limits to our knowledge 2.5 Global trends and dynamic pressures 2.6 Uses of the pressure and release model 3. Access to resources and coping in adversity 3.1 Access to resources - an introduction 3.2 New thinking since 1994 3.3 'Normal life' - the formal Access model 3.4 Coping and access to safety Part 2: Vulnerability and Hazard Types 4. Famine and natural hazards 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Famines and their causes 4.3 Explanations of famine 4.4 Complex emergencies, policy famines and human rights 4.5 Causes, pressures, unsafe conditions and famine 4.6 Access and famines 4.7 Policy 4.8 Conclusion 5. Biological hazards 5.1 Introduction 5.2 What are biological hazards? 5.3 Limitations to our treatment of biological hazards 5.4 Biological links with other hazards 5.5 Livelihoods, resources and disasters 5.6 Vulnerability-creating processes 5.7 Pressures affecting defences against biological hazards 5.8 Root causes and pressures 5.9 Steps toward risk reduction 6. Floods 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Floods as known risks 6.3 Disastrous outcomes for vulnerable people 6.4 Floods and vulnerability 6.5 Summary: flood prevention and mitigation 7. Coastal storms 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The physical hazard 7.3 Patterns of vulnerability 7.4 Case-studies 7.5 Policy responses 8. Earthquakes and volcanoes 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Classic case-studies: Guatemala and Mexico 8.3 Recent case-studies 8.4 Volcanoes and related hazards 8.5 Goma, Congo, eruption of Mount Nyiragongo 2002 8.6 Policy response and mitigation Part 3: Towards a Safer Environment 9. Towards a safer environment 9.1 Towards a safer environment: are statements of intent merely hot air? 9.2 From Yokohama to Johannesburg via Geneva 9.3 Risk reduction objectives Notes Bibliography

Deng Xiaoping's rule has seen fundamental economic change in China. This book considers the impact of these years on China's physical environment, as well as its people, industry, agriculture and trade. It also assesses the contribution of a decade of Chinese politics towards geopolitics. The book provides an introduction to Communist China, setting its spatial and environmental themes in the historical, political and economic framework so crucial to a proper understanding of this country and the fifth of the world's population it contains. It is particularly suited to courses on China, its geography and development strategy. After the bloody events of Tiananmen Square in June 1989 China's geopolitics will continue to hold the world's attention. With this in view the book also provides guides to further reading.

Deng Xiaoping's rule has seen fundamental economic change in China. This book considers the impact of these years on China's physical environment, as well as its people, industry, agriculture and trade. It also assesses the contribution of a decade of Chinese politics towards regional development, urbanization, the environment and geopolitics. The book provides an introduction to Communist China, setting its spatial and environmental themes in the historical, political and economic framework so crucial to a proper understanding of this country and the fifth of the world's population it contains. It is particularly suited to courses on China, its geography and development strategy. After the bloody events of Tiananmen Square in June 1989, China's geopolitics will continue to hold the world's attention. With this in view the book also provides guides to further reading.

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. It also focuses on what makes people vulnerable. Often this means analyzing the links between poverty and vulnerability. But it is also important to take account of different social groups that suffer more in extreme events, including women, children, the frail and elderly, ethnic minorities, illegal immigrants, refugees and people with disabilities.

Vulnerability has also been increased by global environmental change and economic globalization - it is an irony of the 'risk society' that efforts to provide 'security' often create new risks. Fifty years of deforestation in Honduras and Nicaragua opened up the land for the export of beef, coffee, bananas, and cotton. It enriched the few, but endangered the many when hurricane Mitch struck these areas in 1998. Rainfall sent denuded hillsides sliding down on villages and towns.

This new edition of At Risk confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters since it was first published 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.

The book then concludes with strategies to create a safer world..

Why did the people of the Zambesi Delta affected by severe flooding return early to their homes or even choose to not evacuate? How is the forced resettlement of small-scale farmers living along the foothills of an active volcano on the Philippines impacting on their day-to-day livelihood routines? Making sense of such questions and observations is only possible by understanding how the decision-making of societies at risk is embedded in culture, and how intervention measures acknowledge, or neglect, cultural settings. The social construction of risk is being given increasing priority in understand how people experience and prioritize hazards in their own lives and how vulnerability can be reduced, and resilience increased, at a local level.

"

Culture and Disasters "adopts an interdisciplinary approach to explore this cultural dimension of disaster, with contributions from leading international experiences within the field. Section I provides discussion of theoretical considerations and practical research to better understand the important of culture in hazards and disasters. Culture can be interpreted widely with many different perspectives; this enables us to critically consider the cultural boundedness of research itself, as well as the complexities of incorporating various interpretations into DRR. If culture is omitted, related issues of adaptation, coping, intervention, knowledge and power relations cannot be fully grasped. Section II explores what aspects of culture shape resilience? How have people operationalized culture in every day life to establish DRR practice? What constitutes a resilient culture and what role does culture play in a society s decision making? It is natural for people to seek refuge in tried and trust methods of disaster mitigation, however, culture and belief systems are constantly evolving. How these coping strategies can be introduced into DRR therefore poses a challenging question. Finally, Section III examines the effectiveness of key scientific frameworks for understanding the role of culture in disaster risk reduction and management. DRR includes a range of norms and breaking these through an understanding of cultural will challenge established theoretical and empirical frameworks. "