Did the Earth Move for You? The Social Seismology of a Natural Disaster in Maluku, Eastern Indonesia

1999 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Pannell
1963 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick L. Bates ◽  
◽  
C. W. Fogleman ◽  
V. J. Parenton ◽  
R. H. Pittman ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
ROY PORTER

The physician George Hoggart Toulmin (1754–1817) propounded his theory of the Earth in a number of works beginning with The antiquity and duration of the world (1780) and ending with his The eternity of the universe (1789). It bore many resemblances to James Hutton's "Theory of the Earth" (1788) in stressing the uniformity of Nature, the gradual destruction and recreation of the continents and the unfathomable age of the Earth. In Toulmin's view, the progress of the proper theory of the Earth and of political advancement were inseparable from each other. For he analysed the commonly accepted geological ideas of his day (which postulated that the Earth had been created at no great distance of time by God; that God had intervened in Earth history on occasions like the Deluge to punish man; and that all Nature had been fabricated by God to serve man) and argued they were symptomatic of a society trapped in ignorance and superstition, and held down by priestcraft and political tyranny. In this respect he shared the outlook of the more radical figures of the French Enlightenment such as Helvétius and the Baron d'Holbach. He believed that the advance of freedom and knowledge would bring about improved understanding of the history and nature of the Earth, as a consequence of which Man would better understand the terms of his own existence, and learn to live in peace, harmony and civilization. Yet Toulmin's hopes were tempered by his naturalistic view of the history of the Earth and of Man. For Time destroyed everything — continents and civilizations. The fundamental law of things was cyclicality not progress. This latent political conservatism and pessimism became explicit in Toulmin's volume of verse, Illustration of affection, published posthumously in 1819. In those poems he signalled his disapproval of the French Revolution and of Napoleonic imperialism. He now argued that all was for the best in the social order, and he abandoned his own earlier atheistic religious radicalism, now subscribing to a more Christian view of God. Toulmin's earlier geological views had run into considerable opposition from orthodox religious elements. They were largely ignored by the geological community in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain, but were revived and reprinted by lower class radicals such as Richard Carlile. This paper is to be published in the American journal, The Journal for the History of Ideas in 1978 (in press).


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Laura Hall ◽  
Urpi Pine ◽  
Tanya Shute

Abstract This paper will reflect on key findings from a Summer 2017 initiative entitled The Role of Culture and Land-Based Healing in Addressing and Ending Violence against Indigenous Women and Two-Spirited People. The Indigenist and decolonizing methodological approach of this work ensured that all research was grounded in experiential and reciprocal ways of learning. Two major findings guide the next phase of this research, complicating the premise that traditional economic activities are healing for Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people. First, the complexities of the mainstream labour force were raised numerous times. Traditional economies are pressured in ongoing ways through exploitative labour practices. Secondly, participants emphasized the importance of attending to the responsibility of nurturing, enriching, and sustaining the wellbeing of soil, water, and original seeds in the process of creating renewal gardens as a healing endeavour. In other words, we have an active role to play in healing the environment and not merely using the environment to heal ourselves. Gardening as research and embodied knowledge was stressed by extreme weather changes including hail in June, 2018, which meant that participants spent as much time talking about the healing of the earth and her systems as the healing of Indigenous women in a context of ongoing colonialism.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Roberts

The notion that the Earth has entered a new epoch characterized by the ubiquity of anthropogenic change presents the social sciences with something of a paradox, namely, that the point at which we recognize our species to be a geologic force is also the moment where our assumed metaphysical privilege becomes untenable. Cultural geography continues to navigate this paradox in conceptually innovative ways through its engagements with materialist philosophies, more-than-human thinking and experimental modes of ontological enquiry. Drawing upon the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, this article contributes to these timely debates by articulating the paradox of the Anthropocene in relation to technological processes. Simondon’s philosophy precedes the identification of the Anthropocene epoch by a number of decades, yet his insistence upon situating technology within an immanent field of material processes resonates with contemporary geographical concerns in a number of important ways. More specifically, Simondon’s conceptual vocabulary provides a means of framing our entanglements with technological processes without assuming a metaphysical distinction between human beings and the forces of nature. In this article, I show how Simondon’s concepts of individuation and transduction intersect with this technological problematic through his far-reaching critique of the ‘hylomorphic’ distinction between matter and form. Inspired by Simondon’s original account of the genesis of a clay brick, the article unfolds these conceptual challenges through two contrasting empirical encounters with 3D printing technologies. In doing so, my intention is to lend an affective consistency to Simondon’s problematic, and to do so in a way that captures the kinds of material mutations expressive of a particular technological moment.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Saraiva ◽  
Priscila Doran ◽  
Rosa Doran

<p>The Earth is an amazing planet. However, it is also an unpredictable and wild one – part of its many charms. Atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere are alive, and can unleash awesome forces on the whole planet, including the biosphere, of which we humans are part. It’s important to make young students aware of the fact that we all live in a planet that was not made specifically for humans, and that it is absolutely imperative that our species learns to respect it and its rhythms and cycles.</p><p>Human settlements are often located in pleasant areas, with little or no concern about their vulnerability to natural disasters. Authorities, local, regional and national, should make preparations to prevent and mitigate their occurrence, of course. But at least as important is the need to create awareness in the citizens, so they can face any disaster and react in a calm and orderly way. That task must begin at an early age. Other than learning to deal with natural disasters and avoiding panic, schoolkids can exert a powerful influence in the adult members of their families and alert them to the measures they should adopt to prepare for any future occurrence.</p><p>In project rAn, EU-funded, we aim to develop a serious game, adjusted to the age of the targets, that will teach them about four types of natural disaster (earthquakes, floods, fires and storms) and make them aware of how to prepare and react in case of one of them striking their city or village. The game will be easy to play, and given the small age of the players will not feature complex interactions. It will include contributions from teachers and groups of students from all Europe, that will be challenged to create small games on the subject, using the Scratch language.    </p>


Author(s):  
Eduardo Marone ◽  
Martin Bohle

Geoscientists developed geoethics, an intra-disciplinary field of applied philosophical studies, during the last decade. Reaching beyond the sphere of professional geosciences, it led to professional, cultural, and philosophical approaches to handle the social-ecological structures of our planet ‘wherever human activities interact with the Earth system’. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 and considering geoscientists’ experiences dealing with disasters (related to hazards like tsunamis, floods, climate changes.), this essay (1) explores the geoethical approach, (2) re-casts geoethics within western philosophical systems, such as the Kantian imperatives, Kohlberg scale of moral adequacy, Jonas’ imperative of responsibility, and (3) advances a ‘geoethical thesis’. The latter takes the form of a hypothesis of a much broader scope of geoethics than initially envisioned. That hypothesis appears by suspecting a relationship between the relative successes in the COVID-19 battle with the positioning of agents (individual, collective, institutional) into ethical frameworks. The turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, calls for the transfer of experiences between different disciplinary domains to further sustainable governance, hence generalising the geoethical approach. It is emphasized that only when behaving as responsible and knowledgeable citizens, then people of any trade (including [geo-]scientists) can transgress the boundaries of ordinary governance practices with legitimacy.


Author(s):  
Goniuk O.V. ◽  
Sydorenko O.Yu.

Стаття є спробою дослідження провідних складників концептосфери хронотопу війни в книзі малої прози сучасної української письменниці та перекладачки Катерини Калитко «Земля Загублених, або Маленькі страшні казки» на прикладі циклу оповідань із середньовічно-лицарською темпоральністю та оповідання «Мартин», в якому художньо висвітлено сучасну війну на Сході України. Концептний аналіз оповідань дозволяє простежити, яким чином сучасна війна концептуалізується в хронотопі художніх творів покоління українських письменників, передусім Катерини Калитко, та як це позначається на особливостях творчої манери, індивідуального стилю авторки, а також способах взаємодії з читачем. Мета роботи – виявити та дослідити провідні компоненти концептосфери хронотопу війни в книзі короткої прози Катерини Калитко «Земля Загублених, або Маленькі страшні казки».Методи. В основі дослідження – методи біографічного, порівняльного, герменевтичного аналізу.Результати. З’ясовано, що для творчості сучасної письменниці характерне концентроване смислове та вербальне напо-внення хронотопічних концептів, їх герметичність і водночас зовнішня простота. Концептосфера війни в аналізованій збірці складається з концептів води (субконцепти дощу, зливи, річки, моря), субконцептів кам’яного простору (стіни, кам’яної брили та фортеці) та субконцептів-символів національної ідентичності (материнської мови, дерева черешні). Традиційні національні концепти в художньому світобаченні авторки трансформуються та зазнають несподіваних способів переосмислення, що є яскравим індикатором глибоких зсувів у соціальному, духовному, філософському та творчому мисленні письменниці.Висновки. Концептуальними домінантами авторського хронотопу в збірці малої прози К. Калитко є простір землі як притулку в умовах війни не лише як збройної агресії, а і як протиріччя та дисгармонії всередині самої людини, що спричинені усвідомленням своєї інакшості, загубленості, відстороненості й відкинутості соціумом. Моделювання метафоричного та фантасмагорійного часу та простору для письменниці є чи не єдиною адекватною стратегією опису абсурдності війни, як явища у загальнолюдському масштабі: через закладені в оповіданнях багатошарові сенси, переосмислення та конструювання тра-диційних і самобутніх, новаторських, суто авторських концептів хронотопу авторка наголошує на антигуманності будь-якого воєнного конфлікту, що загострює й до того складну екзистенцію людей, переконаних у власній інакшості, несумісності з тією географією, в якій з певних причин вони змушені перебувати.Ключові слова: війна, концепт, субконцепт, художній час/простір, ідіостиль. The article studies the leading components of the conceptosphere of the chronotope of the war in the book of the small prose of the modern Ukrainian writer and translator K. Kalytko “The Land of All Those Lost, or Little Scary Tales” on the example of the cycle of short stories with medieval and chivalrous temporality, and the short story “Martyn”, which artistically enlightens the current war in the East of Ukraine.Purpose of the work is to identify and study the leading components of the conceptosphere of the chronotope of war in the book of short prose by Kateryna Kalytko “Land of the Lost, or Little Scary Tales”.Methods. The study is based on the methods of biographical, comparative, hermeneutic analysis.Results. Short prose of a modern writer is characterized by a concentrated semantic and verbal content of chronotopic concepts, their tightness and at the same time external simplicity. The conceptual sphere of war presented through the concept of water (subconcepts of rain, river, sea), subconcepts of stone space (wall, stone block) and fortress) and subconcepts-symbols of national identity (mother tongue, cherry trees). Traditional national concepts in the author’s artistic worldview are transformed and undergo unexpected ways of rethinking, which is a clear indicator of deep shifts in the social, spiritual, philosophical and creative thinking of the writer.Conclusions. The conceptual dominants of the author’s chronotope short prose by K. Kalytko are the space of the earth as a refuge in conditions of war not only as armed aggression, but also as contradictions and disharmony within man himself, caused by the realization of his otherness, loss, alienation and rejection. Modelling metaphorical and phantasmagoric time and space for the writer is almost the only adequate strategy for describing the absurdity of war as a phenomenon on a universal scale: through the multilayered meanings embedded in the stories, rethinking and constructing traditional and original, innovative, purely authorial concepts – some military conflict, which exacerbates the already complex existence of people convinced of their own otherness, incompatibility with the unelected geography in which for some reason they are forced to be.Key words: war, concept, subconcept, artistic time/space, idiostyle.


2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Stearns

AbstractThe Black Death, which struck al-Andalus in the second half of the 8th/14th century, was an unprecedented natural disaster. In this essay I examine the legal and ethical responses of two Granadan scholars to the social and intellectual challenge posed by this event. Whereas previous scholarship has almost universally lauded the stridently critical stance of the wazir Ibn al-Khatīb as an exceptional example of rational empiricism, I argue that his stance is more productively understood when compared to that of his teacher Ibn Lubb. Both scholars articulated an ethical response to an insurmountable challenge from within a medical and legal framework. Their interpretive choices and conclusions were based not so much on one scholar's privileging of empirical evidence over legal dogma, or vice versa, as they were on both scholars' grounding their respective statements in differing understandings of the nature of the evidence at hand.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document