230171 SE Thinking Through Disaster (2015S)

Through examination of disasters in Fukushima, the Gulf of Mexico, Bhopal, and elsewhere, students in this course will develop an analytic framework for understanding and responding to disaster recognizing that while disasters are always shaped by local conditions and culture, they are also sobering in their predictability. Quite predictably, for example, disasters are uneven in their effects on different communities, and undermine democratic processes and accountability. We will also explore how disaster analytics advance understanding of slow disasters produced by climate change, toxic contamination, structural adjustment and other slow but forceful sources of vulnerability and injury.

Throughout the course, we will continually elaborate a set of questions that need to be asked to understand what causes disaster, what creates vulnerability to the effects of disaster, and how disaster often engenders a 'second disaster' through flawed relief and rehabilitation initiatives. Our efforts will be informed by literatures in cultural anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS), and also by the now vast literature focused on human dimensions of climate change (which explores various ways of thinking about disaster mitigation, vulnerability, and coping strategies, at local, national, regional and global levels).

Students will use disaster analytics to annotate articles and documentary films about past disaster. They will also chart disaster vulnerability in their home communities, identifying available sources of information as well as information gaps. Students will debate controversial issues that recur in disaster contexts, and will develop a proposal for a practical initiative to reduce disaster vulnerability in a particular location.