Critical Disaster Studies: (Critical Studies in Risk and Disaster)

This book announces the new, interdisciplinary field of critical disaster studies. Unlike most existing approaches to disaster, critical disaster studies begins with the idea that disasters are not objective facts, but rather are interpretive fictions-and they shape the way people see the world. By questioning the concept of disaster itself, critical disaster studies reveals the stakes of defining people or places as vulnerable, resilient, or at risk. As social constructs, disaster, vulnerability, resilience, and risk shape and are shaped by contests over power. Managers and technocrats often herald the goals of disaster response and recovery as objective, quantifiable, or self-evident. In reality, the goals are subjective, and usually contested. Critical disaster studies attends to the ways powerful people often use claims of technocratic expertise to maintain power. Moreover, rather than existing as isolated events, disasters take place over time. People commonly imagine disasters to be unexpected and sudden, making structural conditions appear contingent, widespread conditions appear local, and chronic conditions appear acute. By placing disasters in broader contexts, critical disaster studies peels away that veneer. With chapters by scholars of five continents and seven disciplines, Critical Disaster Studies asks how disasters come to be known as disasters, how disasters are used as tools of governance and politics, and how people imagine and anticipate disasters. The volume will be of interest to scholars of disaster in any discipline and especially to those teaching the growing number of courses on disaster studies.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. Introducing Critical Disaster Studies Andy Horowitz and Jacob A. C. Remes Part I. Knowing Disaster Chapter 1. The Voyage of the Paragon: Disaster as Method Scott Gabriel Knowles and Zachary Loeb Chapter 2. Acts of God, Man, and System: Knowledge, Technology, and the Construction of Disaster Ryan Hagen Chapter 3. When Does a Crisis Begin? Race, Gender, and the Subprime Noncrisis of the Late 1990s Dara Z. Strolovitch Part II. Governing Disaster Chapter 4. Concrete Kleptocracy and Haiti's Culture of Building: Toward a New Temporality of Disaster Claire Antone Payton Chapter 5. Risk Technopolitics in Freetown Slums: Why Community-Based Disaster Management Is No Silver Bullet Aaron Clark-Ginsberg Chapter 6. Spaces at Risk: Urban Politics and Slum Relocation in Chennai, India Pranathi Diwakar Chapter 7. Plan B: The Collapse of Public-Private Risk Sharing in the US National Flood Insurance Program Rebecca Elliott Part III. Imagining Disaster Chapter 8. Mediating Disaster, or A History of the Novel Susan Scott Parrish Chapter 9. The Tōkai Earthquake and Changing Lexicons of Risk Kerry Smith Chapter 10. Translating Disaster Knowledge from Japan to Chile: A Proposal for Incompleteness Chika Watanabe Afterword. "Acts of Men": Disasters Neglected, Preventable, and Moral Kenneth Hewitt Notes Bibliography Index List of Contributors Acknowledgments

About the Author :
Andy Horowitz is Assistant Professor of History and the Paul and Debra Gibbons Professor in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University. Jacob A. C. Remes is Clinical Associate Professor of History at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University.

Review :
"When speaking of disaster henceforth, we cannot escape the ensuing political questions this volume interrogates." (Los Angeles Review of Books) "In a world marked by calamity, this timely volume widens the lens of our understanding by emphasizing the importance of deeply contextualized approaches to the study of disaster. The end result is a vibrant reimagination of the field and a captivating introduction to critical disaster studies." (Lori Peek, University of Colorado Boulder) "This is a vital, iconoclastic volume that turns much conventional thinking about disaster studies on its head. The contributions are lively, geographically varied, and conceptually suggestive. An exciting and invaluable book." (Rob Nixon, Princeton University) "An urgent, timely, and vitally important volume that deserves a wide readership. As the crisis precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic has made all too clear, this volume's unifying themes—vulnerability, risk, resilience, and disaster—are concepts that every one of us ought to understand, grapple with, and critique." (Julia Irwin, University of South Florida)