In the Shadow of Tungurahua: Disaster Politics in Highland Ecuador

In the Shadow of Tungurahua relates the stories of the people of Penipe, Ecuador living in and between several villages around the volcano Tungurahua and two resettlement communities built for people displaced by government operations following volcanic eruptions in 1999 and 2006. The stories take shape in ways that influence prevailing ideas about how disasters are produced and reproduced, in this case by shifting assemblages of the state first formed during Spanish colonialism attempting to settle (make "legible") and govern Indigenous and campesino populations and places. The disasters unfolding around Tungurahua at the turn of the 21st century also provide lessons in the humanitarian politics of disaster—questions of deservingness, reproducing inequality, and the reproduction of bare life. But this is also a story of how people responded to confront hardships and craft new futures, about forms of cooperation to cope with and adapt to disaster, and the potential for locally derived disaster recovery projects and politics.

Table of Contents:
Preface Prologue – Fire on The Mountain Introduction – Reframing Disaster Part I – Mobility and Legibility Introduction Chapter 1 – Mobilities & (Re)Settlements Chapter 2 – Archipelagos and Bare Life Chapter 3 – The Production of Space Chapter 4 – The Four Walls of Bare Life Part II – The Palimpsest of Minga Introduction Chapter 5 – Enduring Cooperation Chapter 6 – Institutions Chapter 7 – El Indigno, El Truco, El Chisme, Y El Adelanto Part III – Recoveries Introduction Chapter 8 – "But We Did It" Epilogue – Convivir Acknowledgments Notes References Index

About the Author :
A.J. FAAS is an associate professor of Anthropology at San José State University.

Review :
"In the Shadow of Tungurahua is a powerful reminder of ethnography's analytical and methodological value in the anthropological study of disasters. Weaving theoretical reflections with ethnographic storytelling, Faas examines the ways people work tirelessly to make meaningful lives in catastrophe's aftermath and how disaster affected communities are often haunted by colonial and post-colonial political ecological processes that engender disasters. Books like this are few and far between."— Roberto E. Barrios, author of Governing Affect: Neoliberalism and Disaster Reconstruction "Tungurahua is a volcano that erupted ten years before Faas completed his fieldwork in Penipe...[L]ike the volcano, Faas's In the Shadow of Tungurahua is similarly potent due to the scope of its scholarly interventions, for how it brings together the anthropologies of work, risk, and disaster. It is also potent for how it keeps the ethnographic encounter front and center, which breathes life into the text."  — Exertions, the Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Work "In the Shadow of Tungurahua, by A.J. Faas, is a frame story, a structure that allows a rich tapestry of place-based stories to unfold...Faas understands the present situation of people responding to disaster not as an unexpected development but a manifestation of centuries of social and political activity in a place permanently plagued by conquest and resistance – but it is anything but simplistic."— Disaster Prevention and Management "A. J. Faas masterfully presents the stories of residents who were affected by the 1999 and 2006 volcanic eruptions of Tungurahua in the Sierra of central Ecuador [and] provides valuable insight into the politics of disasters. The accounts and experiences of the people of Penipe following the eruption and during their resettlement are powerful, and readerswill quickly feel transported to the streets, porches, agricultural fields, and communal buildings where these events unfolded."— Journal of Latin American Geography "This book demonstrates how deeply an anthropological eye can probe when guided by solid theory, methodology, and long and careful fieldwork. A.J. Faas makes a transformative contribution to the study of disasters and politics in Ecuador, Latin America, and the Global South. It's a delightful read, rich in ethnographic detail and engaging prose, and a testament to the value of anthropological approaches to the study of disaster."— Virginia García-Acosta, editor of The Anthropology of Disasters in Latin America: State of the Art "An extensive, on-the-ground and people-centered look at ordinary, 'bare life' living of the campesinos living on the Tungurahua volcano's mountainside. . . . This scholarly contribution would appeal to any disaster scholar in any discipline who grapples with concepts of belonging, attachment to space, agency, and human–nature relationships."— Journal of Disaster Studies "In the Shadow of Tungurahua is a powerful reminder of ethnography's analytical and methodological value in the anthropological study of disasters. Weaving theoretical reflections with ethnographic storytelling, Faas examines the ways people work tirelessly to make meaningful lives in catastrophe's aftermath and how disaster affected communities are often haunted by colonial and post-colonial political ecological processes that engender disasters. Books like this are few and far between."— Roberto E. Barrios, author of Governing Affect: Neoliberalism and Disaster Reconstruction "Tungurahua is a volcano that erupted ten years before Faas completed his fieldwork in Penipe...[L]ike the volcano, Faas's In the Shadow of Tungurahua is similarly potent due to the scope of its scholarly interventions, for how it brings together the anthropologies of work, risk, and disaster. It is also potent for how it keeps the ethnographic encounter front and center, which breathes life into the text."  — Exertions, the Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Work "In the Shadow of Tungurahua, by A.J. Faas, is a frame story, a structure that allows a rich tapestry of place-based stories to unfold...Faas understands the present situation of people responding to disaster not as an unexpected development but a manifestation of centuries of social and political activity in a place permanently plagued by conquest and resistance – but it is anything but simplistic."— Disaster Prevention and Management "A. J. Faas masterfully presents the stories of residents who were affected by the 1999 and 2006 volcanic eruptions of Tungurahua in the Sierra of central Ecuador [and] provides valuable insight into the politics of disasters. The accounts and experiences of the people of Penipe following the eruption and during their resettlement are powerful, and readerswill quickly feel transported to the streets, porches, agricultural fields, and communal buildings where these events unfolded."— Journal of Latin American Geography "This book demonstrates how deeply an anthropological eye can probe when guided by solid theory, methodology, and long and careful fieldwork. A.J. Faas makes a transformative contribution to the study of disasters and politics in Ecuador, Latin America, and the Global South. It's a delightful read, rich in ethnographic detail and engaging prose, and a testament to the value of anthropological approaches to the study of disaster."— Virginia García-Acosta, editor of The Anthropology of Disasters in Latin America: State of the Art