Returning the Political to Disasters
Abstract as pdf
Corresponding Author:
Rogelio Josue Ramos Torres
CIESAS Mexico
r.ramos@ciesas.edu.mx
Author(s):
From a historical perspective, disasters can be described as deep political events. Oliver-Smith (1999) says a disaster scene can alter leaderships, disassemble, or reassemble power arrangements, and create new political agendas. As an example, 1755 Lisbon earthquake not only triggered a long series of debates between theologians and Enlightenment philosophers but set up as well some of the ultimate characteristics of the modern state (Dynes, 2000).
This kind of political potentialities, make the disaster an opportunity for the adjustment of social conditions where risks and vulnerabilities are distributed in a particularly unequal way such as we can observe in most of Latin America countries. Nevertheless, in these regions the disasters political nature has been systematically inhibit by the economic and political hegemonies, which rather seize this kind of events as a chance to create a shock, discouraging any possible social uprising and strengthening their power.
Considering the responses to every disaster phase as an allocation of political values (Olson, 2000), we can agree, that social involvement is not an issue to promote in the region. The spread of this exclusion practices is one of the reasons for scholars as Sidiqqi (2018) to declare that the current politics of disaster is based on leaving the politics out to maintain control and domination.
Liberal tradition uses to present politics as a moment of social pact or consensus. A way to restore a political dimension, helpful to make appear the long-ignored voices from lower social strata in disaster contexts, is to switch to a more operative approach for Latin America realities, such as the one provided by Schmitt, Mouffe and Rancière. For them, politics is not longer a pact but a moment of conflict, a space of confrontation where social plurality can negotiate through the practice of different ways of power.
DYNES, R. (2000), “The dialogue between Voltaire and Rousseau on the Lisbon Eartquake: The emergence of a social science view”, en International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, vol. 18, núm. 1.
HOFFMAN, & ANTHONY OLIVER-SMITH (eds.), (1999), The Angry Earth, Routledge, Londres.
OLSON, RICHARD S., (2000), “Toward a Politics of Disaster: Losses, Values, Agendas and Blame, en International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Vol. 18, N° 2, 265 – 287.
SIDIQQI, A., (2018), “Disasters in Conflict Areas: finding the politics”, en Disasters, Vol. 42, Issue S2, October 2018.
Emerging voices and pathways to inclusive disaster studies