Abstract
A second framing has emerged in the international world of “natural” disasters, which envisages disaster from a perspective inspired by both psychology and ecology. Here, disaster is considered to be a shock impacting an environment or a system, a “trauma”that must be recovered from. The time frame of the action fits into a cyclical perspective that considers the disaster as a moment in the life of a society, followed by a phase of recovery, then reconstruction, and finally preparation for the next disaster. Even when it is considered sudden and violent, the disaster is also routine because it is recurrent. It regularly affects particular groups and must be seen as an event that will inevitably come about, even if its effects are not always substantial. This is the perspective of “extensive” risks, hazards that have a high probability of occurring, but do not always have a major impact. Disasters are thus envisaged as sudden events that stem from factors that are endogenous to the society itself. As a result, the resources to face them should be found within that society or group, even among individuals. Since the late 1990s, and even more so since the 2000s, a new notion has come to incarnate this central idea: resilience.
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Notes
- 1.
Here I am using the notion of trauma in line with standard usage by actors in the world of “natural” disasters, partially disconnected from its medical origins and appropriated by various actors who use it without needing to demonstrate medical or psychiatric proof of “trauma.” Fassin and Rechtman (2009) and Latté (2008) describe this movement very well in the case of the AZF factory explosion in France in 2001.
- 2.
The notion of vulnerability, which is intimately connected to that of resilience was also the subject of criticism by social science researchers during the 2000s, sometimes based on arguments close to those used in criticisms of resilience.
- 3.
http://www.preventionweb.net/english/ (accessed April 19, 2018).
- 4.
A special funding mechanism for disaster prevention actions put in place by the World Bank.
- 5.
Field notes, March 14, 2015.
- 6.
Fassin and Rechtman (2009) present a detailed genealogy of psychiatric assistance programs in the international humanitarian sphere, but also for interventions relating to disasters in the national context, such as the wave of terrorist attacks in France in 1995 and the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001.
- 7.
Similar situations have been observed in many other cases of disaster. See, for example, the explosion of the AZF factory in Toulouse in 2001 discussed in chapter 6, “Toulouse,” based on the study conducted by Stéphane Latté in Fassin and Rechtman (2009).
- 8.
Field notes, Geneva, Switzerland, May 2009.
- 9.
- 10.
http://www.sgi.org/content/files/in-focus/2015/150316-FBOs-Statement-WCDRR.pdf (accessed April 19, 2018).
- 11.
Field notes, Sendai, March 16, 2015.
- 12.
ActionAid, Christian Aid, Plan UK, Practical Action, Tearfund, as well as British Red Cross/International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
- 13.
See the IFRC report, World Disaster Report 2014: https://www.ifrc.org/publications-and-reports/world-disasters-report/world-disasters-report-2014/world-disasters-report-2014%2D%2Dchapter-4/ (accessed April 19, 2018).
- 14.
See, for example, Cordaid: http://www.preventionweb.net/files/11894_11894CordaidTowardsaresilientfuture.pdf (accessed April 19, 2018).
- 15.
Field notes, Désastres: Savoir, Anthropologies, Éthique, Conference at UNESCO, Paris, France, July 4, 2011.
- 16.
https://www.jica.go.jp/english/news/field/2015/150406_01.html (accessed November 24, 2019).
- 17.
On this subject, see the PhD thesis by Rina Kojima, Reconstruire après Fukushima: responsabiliser et précariser par le risque, supervised by Valérie November and Paul Jobin at the University Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée (LATTS): https://latts.fr/chercheur/rina-kojima/
- 18.
On the Prevention Web site, a search for “microinsurance,” conducted in April 2017, yielded 1180 results, 489 of which concerned programs implemented in Asia, 370 in Europe, 172 in Africa and 158 in the Americas.
- 19.
http://www.haitilibre.com/article-3440-haiti-economie-micro-assurance-pour-le-micro-credit.html (accessed April 19, 2018).
- 20.
http://www.fonkoze.org/about-fonkoze/ (accessed April 19, 2018).
- 21.
Field notes, Sendai, Japan, March 14, 2015.
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Revet, S. (2020). Resilience. In: Disasterland. The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41582-2_7
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