Anthropology of Disaster

Thank you very much for sharing this list!

I'd also like to suggest Land of Opportunity, which is an excellent film directed by Luisa Dantas and a kind of interactive online project. (http://www.landofopportunitymovie.com). 

The film is about community redevelopment in New Orleans after Katrina. It follows the lives of residents, evacuees, migrant workers, and urban planners during the five years after the storm.

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 9:04 PM, Joshua Bell <aravea@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you for sharing this material Amber. Related to this thread, I wanted to share with you and others on the listserve interested in this topic that Gwyn Isaac and I have co-curated a photographic show with Magnum called Unintended Journeys

(http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/unintended-journeys/) that opens February 7 in Washington,DC at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (February 7 – August 13, 2014). The case studies explored visually in the exhibit are the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the US Gulf Coast, the earthquake in Haiti, the earthquake and tsunami off the Fukushima region of Japan, issues related to sea-level rise and flooding in Bangladesh's delta region, and desertification in southern Sudan and northern Kenya. We will have a range of public programs attached to the show and a blog once the show is launched.

Joshua

On Jan 23, 2014, at 1:15 PM, Amber Wutich <Amber.Wutich@ASU.EDU> wrote:

Hi everyone,

In December, I asked for syllabi on disasters. A number of people generously shared resources, ideas, and syllabi. Thank you! Below is a compilation of the references everyone shared. It's quite extensive, and a great resource for those of us starting out to design a new course.

Thanks again, everyone!
Best, Amber

Amber Wutich
Carnegie CASE Arizona Professor of the Year
Associate Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University

Associate Editor, Field Methods

Summary of Resources for Anthropology of Disaster Syllabi (EANTH list as of 012414)

Books

Dynes, R.R., and Tierney, K.J., editors 1994. Disasters, Collective Behavior, and Social Organization. Newark, DE:  University of Delaware Press.

Gunawardena, N. and Schuller, M., eds. 2008. Capitalizing on Catastrophe: Neoliberal Strategies in Disaster Reconstruction, New York: Altamira Press.

Hoffman, S. and Oliver-Smith, A., editors. 2002. Culture and Catastrophe:  the Anthropology of Disaster. Santa Fe, NM:  School of American Research Press.

Jones, E.C., & Murphy, A.D., Eds. 2009. The political economy of hazards and disasters. Rowman Altamira.

Oliver-Smith, A., editor. 1986. Natural Disasters and Cultural Responses. Williamsburg, VA:  College of William and Mary.

Oliver-Smith, A., and  Hoffman, S., editors. 1999.  The Angry Earth:  Disaster in Anthropological Perspective.  New York:  Routledge.

Anthony Oliver-Smith and Susana M. Hoffman, eds. Culture and Catastrophe: The Anthropology of Disaster. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press 2002

Fagan, B. M. 2008. The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and fall of Civilizations: Bloomsbury Press.

McAnany Patricia A., Norman Yoffee 2009 Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire. Cambridge University Press, London.

Blaikie, P. 1994. At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters

London: Routledge.

Das, V. 1995. Suffering, Legitimacy and Healing: The Bhopal Case. In Critical

Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India. Delhi:

Oxford University Press.

Johnston, BR. Life & Death Matters: Human Rights, Environment and Social Justice (Left Coast 2011)

BR Johnston, Halflives and Half-truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War (2007).

Checker, M. 2005. Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism & the search for Environmental Justice.

Consequential Damages of Nuclear War – The Rongelap Report (Johnston & Barker 2008).

John Donahue and BR Johnston Water, Culture, Power – Local Struggles in a Global Context (1998).

Crate, Susan A. (Editor); Mark Nuttall (Editor). 2008. Anthropology and Climate Change: From Encounters to Actions. Left Coast Press. (ACC in schedule of readings)

Davis, Mike. 2001. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World. Verso.

Douglas M, Wildavsky A. 1983. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.

Fine, GA. 2007. Authors of the Storm: Meteorologists and the Culture of Prediction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Eakin, H. 2006. Weathering Risk in Rural Mexico: Climatic, Institutional, and Economic Change. University of Arizona Press.

Lisa Cliggett (2005) Grains from Grass: Aging, Gender, and Famine in Rural Africa. Cornell University: Ithaca.

Articles/Chapters

Torry, William I. "Hazards, Hazes and Holes: a Critique of the Environment as Hazard* and General Reflections on Disaster Research." The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien 23.4 (1979): 368-383.

Anthony Oliver-Smith “Understanding Hurricane Mitch: Complexity, Causality and the Political Ecology of Disaster”

Bradley E. Ensor and Marissa Olivo Ensor “Hurricane Mitch: Root Causes and Responses to the Disaster”

Manuel Winograd “From Natural Events to “Natural” Disasters: Assessing Environmental Vulnerability in Honduras

Roberto E. Barrios “Tin Roofs, Cinder Blocks, and the Salvatrucha Gang: The Semiotic-Material Production of Crisis in Post-Hurricane Mitch Reconstruction”

Susana Hoffman “The Regenesis of Traditional Gender Patterns in the Wake of Disaster” 

John S. Petterson et. al., “A Preliminary Assessment of Social and Economic Impacts Associated with Hurricane Katrina” American Anthropologist, vol. 108 (4)

Diane Austin “Coastal Exploitation, Land Loss, and Hurricanes: A Recipe For Disaster” American Anthropologist, vol 104 (4)

George Lipsitz “Learning from New Orleans: The social warrant of hostile privatism and competitive consumer citizenship” Cultural Anthropology, 2006 21(3): 451-468

Christopher L. Dyer and James R. McGoodwin “Tell them we’re hurting: Hurricane Andrew, the Culture of Response, and the Fishing Peoples of South Florida and Louisiana”

Robert Bolin and Lois Stanford “Constructing Vulnerability in the First World”

Roberto E. Barrios “Post-Katrina Neighborhood Recovery: Planning in New Orleans”

Kim Fortun Advocacy after Bhopal

Georgina Drew, various works on dams, disaster in Himalayas

Asante, M. 2011. Haiti: Three Analytical Narratives of Crisis and Recovery.

Journal of Black Studies 42 (2), 276-287.

Austrin, T & J. Farnsworth. 2012. Upheaval: Seismic, Social, and Media Mashups

After the Christchurch Earthquakes. New Zealand Journal of Media

Studies 13 (2), 78-94.

Bellegarde-Smith, P. 2011. A Man-Made Disaster: The Earthquake of January

12, 2010— A Haitian Perspective. Journal of Black Studies 42 (2), 264-

275.

Donini, A. 2008. Through a Glass Darkly: Humanitarianism and Empire. In

Capitalizing on Catastrophe: Neoliberal Strategies in Disaster

Reconstruction. (eds) N. Gunewardena and M. Schuller. Lanham, MD:

AltaMira Press. 29-44.

Fatton, R. 2011. Haiti in the Aftermath of the Earthquake: The Politics of

Catastrophe. Journal of Black Studies 42 (2), 158-185.

Fernando, U & D. Hillhorst. 2006. Everyday Practices of Humanitarian Aid:

Tsunami Response in Sri Lanka. Development in Practice 16 (3-4), 292-

302.

Johnston, B. R. 1994. Experimenting on Human Subjects: Nuclear Weapons

Testing and Human Rights Abuse. In Who Pays The Price? The

Sociocultural Context of Environmental Crisis. (ed) Johnston, B. R.

Washington DC: Island Press. 131-141.

Lauer, M. 2012. Oral Traditions or Situated Practices? Understanding How

Indigenous Communities Respond To Environmental Disasters. Human

Organization 71 (2), 176-187.

Macrae, G. 2008. Could the system work better? Scale and Local Knowledge in

Humanitarian Relief. Development in Practice 18 (2) 190-200.

Macrae, G & D. Hodgkin. 2011. Half Full or Half Empty? Shelter After The

Jogjakarta Earthquake. Disasters 35 (1), 243-267.

Miller, D.S. 2008. Disaster tourism and disaster landscape attractions after

Hurricane Katrina: An auto ethnographic journey. International Journal ofCulture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 2, 115-131.

Oliver-Smith, A. 1996. Anthropological Research on Hazards and Disasters.

Annual Review of Anthropology 25, 303-328.

Pierre-Louis, F. 2011. Earthquakes, Nongovernmental Organizations, and

Governance in Haiti. Journal of Black Studies 42(2), 186-202.

Rajan, R. 2001. Toward a Metaphysic of Environmental Violence: The Case of

The Bhopal Gas Disaster. In Violent Environments (eds) Peluso, N. & M.

Watts. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Skinner, J. 2000. The Eruption of Chances Peak, Montserrat and The Narrative

Containment of Risk. In Risk Revisited (ed.) P. Caplan. Anthropology,

Culture & Society. London: Pluto Press. 156-183.

Williams, S. 2009. Rethinking the Nature of Disaster: From Failed Instruments of

Learning to a Post-Social Understanding. Social Forces 87, 1115-1138.

Laura Nader "Controlling Processes: Tracing the Dynamic Components of Power" (1997). Current

Anthropology 38 (5): 711-737. http://repositories.cdlib.org/postprints/3107

Gilbert, Claude 1998.  Studying Disaster: Changes in the Main Conceptual Tools. In: E.L. Quarantelli(ed.). What is a Disaster? London: Routledge. 

Wisner, Ben et al. 2004.  At Risk.  Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters.  London: Routledge: Chapter 2: Disaster Pressure and Release Model.

Wisner, Ben et al. 2004.  At Risk.  Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters.  London: Routledge: Chapter 3: Acccess to Resources and Coping with Adversity.

Oliver-Smith Anthony 2009. Anthropology and the Political Economy of Disasters. In: Jones, Eric C. and Arthur D. Murphy (eds.) The Political Economy of Hazards and Disasters, Plymouth: Alta Mira Press, pp. 11-30.

Bankoff, George  2001.  Rendering the World unsafe: ‘Vulnerability’ as Western Discourse.  Disasters 25 (1): 13-35.

Dash, Nicole, W.G. Peacock and B.H. Morrow. 1997. And the Poor get Poorer.  A Neglected Black Community. In: W.G. Peacock. et al. (eds.)  Hurricane Andrew. Ethnicity, Gender and the Sociology of Disasters. London: Routledge.

Underhill, Megan 2009. The Invisible Toll of Katrina: How Social and Economic Resources are Altering the Recovery Experience among Katrina Evacuees in Colorado. In: In: Jones, Eric C. and Arthur D. Murphy (eds.) The Political Economy of Hazards and Disasters, Plymouth: Alta Mira Press, pp. 59-82

Fordham, Maureen. 1999.  The Intersection of Gender and Social Class in Disaster: Balancing Resilience and Vulnerability. In: International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 17/1:15-36.

Enarson, Elaine and Meyreles, Lourdes 2004. International Perspectives on Gender and Disaster: Differences and Possibilities. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 24 (10): 49-93.

Enarson, Elaine: Women and Girls Last? Averting the Second Post-Katrina Disaster. Published on: Jun 11 2006: http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Enarson/printable.html (22.4.2008).

Dyer, Christopher L. 2009. From the Phoenix Effect to Punctuated Entropy: The Culture of Response as a Unifying Paradigm of Disaster Mitigation and Recovery. In: Jones, Eric C. and Arthur D. Murphy (eds.) The Political Economy of Hazards and Disasters, Plymouth: Alta Mira Press, pp. 313-336.

Henry, Jacques 2011. Continuity, social change and Katrina. Disasters 35 (1): 220-242.


Hastrup, Frida 2010. Materializations of Disaster: Recovering Lost Plots in a Tsunami-Affected Village in South India. In: Bille M. et al. (eds.) An anthropology of absence: materializations of transcendence and loss. pp: 99-114.


Picou, J.S et al.  2004.  Disaster, litigation and the corrosive community.  Social Forces, Vol 82/4: 1493-1522.
Recuber, Timothy 2011. Consuming Catastrophe: Authenticity and Emotion in Mass-Mediated Disaster. Dissertation, City University of New York.


Cunningham, Solveig Argeseanu 2005. Incident, accident, catastrophe: cyanide on the Danube. Disasters, 29(2): 99−128.


Ploughman, Penelope 1995. The American Print News Media 'Construction' of Five Natural Disasters. Disasters 19 (4): 308-326.


Olsen, Gorm Rye, Carstensen, Nils, Høyen, Kristian 2003. Humanitarian Crises: What Determines the Level of Emergency Assistance? Media Coverage, Donor Interests and the Aid Business. Disasters 27(2): 109–126.
Burman, Erica 1994. Innocents Abroad: Western Fantasies of Childhood and the Iconography Emergencies. Disasters 18 (3): 238-253.

Leemann, Esther 2012. Communal Leadership in Post-Mitch Housing Reconstruction in Nicaragua. In: Duyne Barenstein, J. and E. Leemann (eds.) Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Change. Communities’ Perspectives, Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 3-29.

Häberli, Isabel 2012. Aid Distribution after Hurricane Mitch and Changes in Social Capital in Two Nicaraguan Rural Communities. In: Duyne Barenstein, J. and E. Leemann (eds.) Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Change. Communities’ Perspectives, Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 31-54.


Hilhorst, Dorothea, Ian Christoplos and Gemma Van Der Harr 2012. Reconstruction ‘From Below’: a new magic bullet or shooting from the hip? Third World Quarterly, Vol. 31 (7) pp. 1107–1124.


Davidson, Colin et al. 2007. Truths and myths about community participation in post-disaster housing projects. Habitat International 31, pp. 100–115.

Naimi-Gasser, Jasmin 2012. The Remembered Trees: Contractor-Driven Reconstruction and Its Consequences on Communities’ Well-Being in Coastal Tamil Nadu. In: Duyne Barenstein, J. and E. Leemann (eds.) Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Change. Communities’ Perspectives, Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 137-155.

Duyne Barenstein, Jennifer and Sonja Trachsel 2012. The Role of Informal Governance in Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Its Impact on Elderly People’s Social Security in Coastal Tamil
Nadu. In: Duyne Barenstein, J. and E. Leemann (eds.) Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Change. Communities’ Perspectives, Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 157-176.

Tenconi, Diana 2012. Links between Building Technologies, Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Gender Roles in Gujarat. In: Duyne Barenstein, J. and E. Leemann (eds.) Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Change. Communities’ Perspectives, Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 31-54.

Bradshaw Sarah 2001. Reconstructing roles and relations: women’s participation in reconstruction in post-Mitch Nicaragua. Gender and Development Vol. 9 (3), pp. 79-87.

Graf, Andrea 2012. Unaffordable Housing and Its Consequences: A Comparative Analysis of Two Post-Mitch Reconstruction Projects in Nicaragua. In: Duyne Barenstein, J. and E. Leemann (eds.) Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Change. Communities’ Perspectives, Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 195-212.

Zulauf, Anouk 2012. The Impact of Landlessness on Rural Livelihoods after Post-Mitch Resettlement in Nicaragua. In: Duyne Barenstein, J. and E. Leemann (eds.) Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Change. Communities’ Perspectives, Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 259-280.

Inglin, Stefan 2012. Links between Post-Tsunami Relocation and Changes in Fishing Practices in Tamil Nadu: A Microlevel Case Study. In: Duyne Barenstein, J. and E. Leemann (eds.) Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Change. Communities’ Perspectives, Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 259-280.

Casutt, Dumenia 2012. Voluntary Relocation after Disaster: A Hope for Many, a Chance for Few? In: Duyne Barenstein, J. and E. Leemann (eds.) Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Change. Communities’ Perspectives, Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 259-280.

Tierney, Kathleen and Oliver-Smith, Anthony 2012: Social Dimensions of Disaster Recovery. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters Vol. 30 (2) pp. 123–146.

Multimedia

Kate Browne's documentary "Still Waiting: Life after Katrina" has lots of interview material about one very large family.

"Trouble the Water" put out by Zeitgeist Films is a very gripping Katrina documentary.

“1945 – 1998” by Isao Hashimoto. http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/

Film: The forgotten bomb

“Hiding behind the poor a report by Greenpeace on Climate Injustice” at

http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/india/press/r

eports/hiding-behind-the-poor-presentation.pdf.

Workshop on: Teaching 3.11 (Japan’s Triple Disaster), Issues, Materials, Pedagogy and Research, June 29, 2012, Sophia University, Yotsuya Campus (Google for participants, links to more resources, shared syllabi)

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Nathan Jessee

Ph.D. Student of Anthropology, Temple University

VP, Visual Anthropology Society at Temple