scholarly journals Natural Disaster, International Solidarity, and the Representation of Others. Lessons from Haiti

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-61
Author(s):  
Túlio Zille

This essay revisits the case of the earthquake that shook Port-au-Prince, Haiti—which completed ten years in January 2020—to discuss the enduring, and often unaccounted for, colonial links between representation and contemporary humanitarian practices that are present in different ways in both North-South (in this case, between US and Haiti) and South-South relations (Brazil-Haiti). Unlike conventional approaches to natural disasters, which tend to focus their object of study in one particular place and time, I would like to propose an approach that instead engages multiple spaces, temporalities and agencies. In the context of this critical approach, and as a background question, I invite us to ask: what does international solidarity mean? The result is a more complex lens with which to look at events that are likely to become more frequent, and to affect the socio-economically disadvantaged in disproportional numbers in the near future due to the climate crisis.

Author(s):  
Ki-Gab Park

The chapter argues that natural disasters are common concerns in the international community. At the same time, the current international cooperation mechanism, based on the principle of equal sovereignty, require prior consent by the state affected by a natural disaster. Unfortunately, this is not always an efficient tool for the protection of victims. The globalization of problems and the proliferation of humanitarian crises make the veritable solidarity of the international community increasingly necessary, and therefore another high value, namely international solidarity or community obligations, should create direct and immediate obligations for all members of the international community. The main object of this chapter is to discuss the future-oriented direction of the law on natural disasters. This means, first, to ascertain the lex lata, especially customary rules. The chapter further offers some suggestions on possible ways for the international community to provide more effective relief for victims of natural disasters.


2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Sacchi ◽  
Paolo Riva ◽  
Marco Brambilla

Anthropomorphization is the tendency to ascribe humanlike features and mental states, such as free will and consciousness, to nonhuman beings or inanimate agents. Two studies investigated the consequences of the anthropomorphization of nature on people’s willingness to help victims of natural disasters. Study 1 (N = 96) showed that the humanization of nature correlated negatively with willingness to help natural disaster victims. Study 2 (N = 52) tested for causality, showing that the anthropomorphization of nature reduced participants’ intentions to help the victims. Overall, our findings suggest that humanizing nature undermines the tendency to support victims of natural disasters.


Author(s):  
Yao Li ◽  
Haoyang Li ◽  
Jianqing Ruan

The natural environment is one of the most critical factors that profoundly influences human races. Natural disasters may have enormous effects on individual psychological characteristics. Using China’s long-term historical natural disaster dataset from 1470 to 2000 and data from a household survey in 2012, we explore whether long-term natural disasters affect social trust. We find that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between long-term natural disaster frequency and social trust. We further examine the impact of long-term natural disaster frequency on social trust in specific groups of people. Social trust in neighbors and doctors is stronger where long-term natural disasters are more frequent. Our results are robust after we considering the geographical difference. The effect of long-term natural disasters remains positively significant after we divide the samples based on geographical location. Interestingly, the impact of long-term flood frequency is only significant in the South and the impact of long-term drought frequency is only significant in the North.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franciele Maria Vanelli ◽  
Masato Kobiyama

<p>Natural disasters refer to disruptions of the society’s functioning as result of negative interactions between natural hazards and social organization. Meanwhile, sociohydrology is dedicated to understanding the coupled human-water systems feedbacks. Both natural disaster studies and sociohydrology focus on understanding bidirectional interactions between environmental and social aspects, which is characterized by a dichotomous thinking pattern. In this context, natural disaster studies and sociohydrology have many parallels. In the present research, we conducted an exploratory research from two central arguments: (i) sociohydrology development can contribute to understanding how to disaster risk reduction by converting negative impacts into a harmonious coexistence between natural and social interactions; and (ii) water is relevant to all types of natural disasters in a direct or an indirect manner and is also fundamental in disaster response. Advances in knowledge about bidirectional interactions between environmental and social aspects overcoming dichotomous thinking pattern can update the sociohydrology development and the concepts commonly applied to natural disaster and risk reduction. We propose that any local community should use the school catchment concept that refers to any experimental catchment which serves for scientific researches and environmental education activities. The partnership between natural and social scientists and society is a challenge. Thus, school catchment construction and use can assist to overcome dichotomous thinking such as natural × social aspects, quantitative × qualitative analyses, systematic × non-systematic data, global × local spatial scales, and structural × non-structural measures. Hence, sociohydrology can support the integrated management of water resources and natural disasters and risks, contributing to achieving the Sendai Framework goals and the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations Agenda 2030. On the other hand, natural disaster studies can contribute to the interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary development of sociohydrology. Therefore, we conclude that sociohydrology has the potential, not yet explored, for contributing to natural disaster studies and vice and versa.</p>


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>


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Sundberg

By the early eighteenth century, the economic primacy, cultural efflorescence, and geopolitical power of the Dutch Republic appeared to be waning. The end of this Golden Age was also an era of natural disasters. Between the late seventeenth and the mid-eighteenth century, Dutch communities weathered numerous calamities, including river and coastal floods, cattle plagues, and an outbreak of strange mollusks that threatened the literal foundations of the Republic. Adam Sundberg demonstrates that these disasters emerged out of longstanding changes in environment and society. They were also fundamental to the Dutch experience and understanding of eighteenth-century decline. Disasters provoked widespread suffering, but they also opened opportunities to retool management strategies, expand the scale of response, and to reconsider the ultimate meaning of catastrophe. This book reveals a dynamic and often resilient picture of a society coping with calamity at odds with historical assessments of eighteenth-century stagnation.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Apergis ◽  
James E. Payne

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the short-run monetary policy response to five different types of natural disasters (geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, climatological and biological) with respect to developed and developing countries, respectively. Design/methodology/approach An augmented Taylor rule monetary policy model is estimated using systems generalized method of moments panel estimation over the period 2000–2018 for a panel of 40 developed and 77 developing countries, respectively. Findings In the case of developed countries, the greatest nominal interest rate response originates from geophysical, meteorological, hydrological and climatological disasters, whereas for developing countries the nominal interest rate response is the greatest for geophysical and meteorological disasters. For both developed and developing countries, the results suggest the monetary authorities will pursue expansionary monetary policies in the short-run to lower nominal interest rates; however, the magnitude of the monetary response varies across the type of natural disaster. Originality/value First, unlike previous studies, which focused on a specific type of natural disaster, this study examines whether the short-run monetary policy response differs across the type of natural disaster. Second, in relation to previous studies, the analysis encompasses a much larger panel data set to include 117 countries differentiated between developed and developing countries.


2014 ◽  
Vol 675-677 ◽  
pp. 233-236
Author(s):  
Hai Cheng Hong ◽  
Min Xu

Multistage sampling method was used to sort all cities, counties and districts in Jilin area, and stratified random convenience was applied to take the samples. According to the number of people in the pre-experiment and the number of questionnaire topics, 700 residents who had lived in the area more than a year were selected. Urban residents in Jilin area could understand the natural disaster-related knowledge and their attention to it should be higher, but their knowledge and behaviors in food hygiene-related knowledge and behaviors in natural disasters were worrying. It is necessary to strengthen the propaganda and education of food hygiene in natural disasters. TV, radio, newspapers and networks are important sources of relevant information and knowledge for the majority of residents. Different means should be taken in the publicity and training of food hygiene-related knowledge in natural disasters according to their education background.


2020 ◽  
Vol 166 ◽  
pp. 13006
Author(s):  
Nelia Nagaichuk ◽  
Olena Shabanova ◽  
Natalia Tretiak ◽  
Anatoliy Marenych ◽  
Hanna Chepeliuk

The insurance industry is rather effective in overcoming consequences of natural disasters. Insurance companies play a key role in financing natural disasters consequences, at the same time they sustain record losses and are in difficult financial conditions. Taking into account the above said, the issues of management of insurers risks is up-today and is connected with climate change. In article the content of “climate risk” as risk is specified, the emergence of which is caused by human activity, which leads to pollution, resulting from industrial activity and other sources that greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide) which are capable to absorb a range of infrared radiation generate and, as a result, predetermine warming of the global atmosphere that brings to change of structure of the world atmosphere and adds natural climate instability during the certain periods of time. The most destructive dangers threatening to mankind owing to global warming are systematized. Types of risks and their sphere of manifestation in Ukraine are outlined. The directions of adaptation of the insurance industry to changes, caused by climatic crisis are defined. Due to results of the research, the theoretical generalization and author’s solutions of a scientific task are offered, which appear in the development of scientific and methodical approaches and justification of practical recommendations about modernization of activity of insurance companies and reinsurers in the conditions of risks, generated by global climate changes. Scientific novelty of the research: specifying the role of the insurance industry regarding the prevention of risks connected with global warming.


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