Disaster upon Disaster: Exploring the Gap Between Knowledge, Policy and Practice ed. by Susanna M. Hoffman, and Roberto E. Barrios (review)

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a book could not be more timely than this one about disaster prevention, relief, and recovery. Disaster upon Disaster is a collection of essays about disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management by a group of anthropologists, both scholars and practitioners. Almost to the letter, they echo the plaint of Stephen Krasner (1978, ix) who once asked, “Why are so many social scientists so anxious to give advice to policymakers when there is nothing in their theories that would suggest that it would do any good?” Although this book is unlikely to change policies and practices, its arguments, insights, and recommendations are all applicable to the inevitable climate disasters facing the world.

What can be learned from this book by scholars of global environmental politics and, especially, climate change? The arguments and conclusions of the individual authors can be boiled down to the following points:

1. 1. There is no such thing as a “natural” disaster. They are the result of the confluence of natural phenomena and human-caused hazards and risks. People live in floodplains, hurricane zones, and low-lying cities all threatened by rising sea levels. No people, no disaster.

2. 2. Culture and power matter in disaster impacts, relief, and recovery. Communities are organized through often inequitable distributions of power and wealth. A failure to take such structures and relations into disaster response greatly complicates relief and recovery and often leads to failure, as was clearly evident in the treatment of minorities during and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

3. 3. Natural disasters are always gendered. Already-existing work, housing, educational, and property relations disadvantage women, who almost always experience greater impacts and higher death rates during and after disasters. More women than men died in the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 because they lived in vulnerable dwellings, were responsible for children, and lacked mobility.

4. 4. All disasters are local. Impacts affect specific communities in specific places. Even phenomena as global as climate change and pandemics manifest differently in different places. If victims are excluded from local relief and recovery efforts, even greater disasters may result. Many refugees from Katrina resettled in Houston, where they lost the social ties on which they had long relied in New Orleans.

5. 5. External relief agencies often have little or no knowledge of local needs. Not knowing where the next disaster might occur, relief agencies plan for generic ones and arrive on the scene knowing little or nothing about the victims or their communities. Powerful people can disrupt the best-laid plans, leaving the poor to fend for themselves. This was certainly the case after Katrina, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency botched its relief efforts.

6. 6. Experienced practitioners are valued but may not know much about local conditions, circumstances, or language. There is a network of people experienced in disaster relief and recovery on the ground, who move from one place to another as needed, but they often arrive on-site without adequate preparation. As the number of disasters rises across many sites around the world, this lack of preparation will become a growing obstacle to success.

7. 7. Anthropologists are sufficiently well versed in local social settings to understand community disruption and how to provide relief. Anthropologists have made close, longitudinal studies of specific communities and internal dynamics; practitioners should draw on those specialists and their work to facilitate success in relief and recovery.

8. 8. Policy makers are more concerned about appearances than about helping victims. Leaders worry about elections and campaign contributions, decision makers about jobs, and NGO executives about funding. Communities in dire need of help are unlikely to be foremost in policy makers’ minds when highly visible disasters strike. Climate conferences receive press attention; people suffering in obscure places do not (cf. Haiti and Puerto Rico).

9. 9. Recovery efforts may not live up to the ethical standards of...