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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010343255 | HD49 L43 2015 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
It is widely assumed that humanity should be able to learn from calamities (e.g., emergencies, disasters, catastrophes) and that the affected individuals, groups, and enterprises, as well as the concerned (disaster-) management organizations and institutions for prevention and mitigation, will be able to be better prepared or more efficient next time. Furthermore, it is often assumed that the results of these learning processes are preserved as "knowledge" in the collective memory of a society, and that patterns of practices were adopted on this base. Within history, there is more evidence for the opposite: Analyzing past calamities reveals that there is hardly any learning and, if so, that it rarely lasts more than one or two generations. This book explores whether learning in the context of calamities happens at all, and if learning takes place, under which conditions it can be achieved and what would be required to ensure that learned cognitive and practical knowledge will endure on a societal level. The contributions of this book include various fields of scientific research: history, sociology, geography, psychoanalysis, psychiatry, development studies and political studies, as well as disaster research and disaster risk reduction research.
Author Notes
Heike Egner is Professor of Geography and Regional Studies at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt (Austria).
Marén Schorch is a Research Assistant at the University of Siegen (Germany).
Martin Voss is head of the Disaster Research Unit at Freie Universität Berlin (Germany).
Table of Contents
| I Learning and Interpretative Patternsin Disasters and Catastrophes |
| 1 Catastrophes as a Collapse of Symbolic Order. Scientific Theoretical Concepts and Social Practices of Learning from Calamities |
| 2 Beyond Experiential Learning in Disaster and Development Communication |
| II Learning from History? |
| 3 "The Monster Swallows You": Disaster Memory and Risk Culture in Western Europe, 1500-2000 |
| 4 A Disaster in Slow Motion. The Case of Smoke Pollution in Industrial Britain |
| 5 Learning about Disasters from Animals |
| 6 Historia Magistra Vitae, or So They Say: Why Societies do not Necessarily Learn from Past Disasters |
| III Institutional Patterns of Interpretation and Practices of Learning |
| 7 Normalization and Its Discontents. Organizational Learning from Disaster |
| 8 High Reliability Organizations and Networks |
| 9 Analysis of Catastrophic Natural Hazard Events and their Contribution to Changes in Natural Hazard Management in Switzerland |
| 10 Michel Foucault and Contamination Disaster: Biopolitical Patterns of Interpretation of Institutional Actors after Technical Accidents with Contaminations |
| IV Societal Patterns of Interpretation and Practices of Learning |
| 11 When Push Comes to Shove: The Framing of Need in Disaster Relief Efforts |
| 12 Science Versus Metaphysics: The Importance of Everyday Life Experience for the Interpretation of Disaster |
| 13 Kearifan Lokal and the 2010 Mt. Merapi Eruption: Merging Communitiy-based Disaster Communication Practices with Scientific Knowledge toward Minimizing Disaster Risk |
| V Conclusion |
| 14 Learning from Calamities: What Did We Learn? |
