Why anthropologists should study disasters

Search form. Introduction: Why Anthropologists should Study Disasters. Submitted by alli. Zotero attachments as links:. Google Books Link. Robert McC. Adams, Science. August This means it is particularly well integrated and interwoven… The end product, then, is a most coherent and interesting read which will resonate with academics and citizens as this brave new millennium of ours continues to present us with new and increasingly complex disasters. Buy this volume. Ravi Rajan, Sharon Stephens Download an excerpt.

Anthropology is by nature a self-reflexive discipline Goodman Since the s, social anthropologists are often asked by their peers to reflect upon their personal and cultural background to understand better their own bias. Confessional and reflexive anthropologies are two of the genres that came out of this trends. However, this exercise is executed often within the confinement of and for anthropology itself. In contrast, this paper discusses the opportunities and the hurdles faced by anthropologists working outside the discipline.

The author examines his own experience as a researcher of an interdisciplinary and international disaster research centre born out of the Great East Japan Disaster. Furthermore, possibly due to the fact that the centre results from the specific socio-cultural and historical context of the Great East Japan Disaster, its research activities and its researchers are primarily devoted towards the prevention of the impact of natural disasters minimising human and material loss.

Attempting to respond to this demand through interdisciplinary and international collaborations, the anthropologist often becomes 'lost in translations'. Looking at both the positive and negative outcomes of these tensions, this paper reflects on the possible to the field contributions of anthropology to disaster studies and vice-versa as well as their future engagements.

In , J. Davis undertook the task of uniting the "the comfortable anthropology of social organization, and the painful anthropology of disruption and despair" With the seemingly increasing frequency and severity of climate related disaster, drug-resistant pathogens, and instances of violent armed conflict, it seems all anthropology has the potential to be painful, particularly if the ethnographer is present at the time disaster strikes.

And as disaster anthropology already recognises, painful anthropology and unpredictable events are moments when the vulnerability, resilience or sustainability of the affected society become acutely exposed. I was in the fieldwork phase of my doctoral research, examining the encounter between externally-driven development intervention and local Buddhist practice in Ladakh, North-West India, when the region was exposed to a series of cloudbursts and flash floods on a scale previously unrecalled by local memory.

What this disaster taught me about development was how non-human beings can participate as political actors, how ceremonial and ritual governance combine with the mundane in attempts to manipulate the successes of development, and to be observant of smaller instances of misfortune or technological rejection and their interpretation.

The paper thus highlights how the experience of "being there" Roncoli et al , in this case participating in aftermath of a disaster, stimulates ethnographically-informed knowledge production that can support decisions taken in the wider policy worlds of development and aid intervention, conservation strategies and climate adaptation, livelihood risk and protection, and disaster mitigation.

Nature can provide a trigger for a disaster, but society is — at least to a great extent — responsible for the consequences. Numerous research projects about the coping with social disasters following extreme natural events were and are undertaken, almost all of which have their focus on institutionalized resilience building, which means the work by government and non-government organizations.

We learn a lot about external support, but very little about internal strategies from within the parts of the society who are the most vulnerable and most exposed to disasters.