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146 understand to what degree similar catastrophes may have affected these developments. This chapter is divided into three sections. First, I will address some theoretical approaches used to study disasters from the anthropological perspective, specifically focusing on disasters as “process” more than events (Hoffman and Oliver-Smith 2002:3). This approach sees disasters as the conjuncture of human activities and natural hazards embedded in natural and social systems that unfold as processes over time. This theoretical introduction is relevant for the second section of the chapter, where I will summarize the effects of Hurricane Stan in the Soconusco, specifically in the basin of the Coatán River. Through analysis of social and physical characteristics of this hurricane , we can understand how economic activities triggered the necessary conditions for a disaster to occur and how this process had a deep impact on all aspects of the regional society . Analysis of Hurricane Stan has provided an inductive model for detecting previous disasters in the region. It has evidenced how changes in the course of the river are frequent In 1794 the capital of the Soconusco province was moved from Escuintla to Tapachula . The reason for this change was a storm with strong winds that caused severe damage to Escuintla’s commerce and harm to its population (Pineda 1999:72 [1845]). These “strong winds” likely referenced a powerful hurricane that hit the area. Two hundred and eleven years later, another hurricane, Stan, provoked similar destruction in many parts of Tapachula. Given that hurricanes and other natural hazards are annual events in southern Mexico and Central America, one is led to ask if previous hurricanes caused similar damage to ancient population centers of the Soconusco. What other geological hazards could cause large-scale destruction in the region? How have human activities interacted with natural hazards, accelerating or preventing possible disasters? These questions are relevant because the Soconusco mangroves and coastal plain demonstrate clear evidence for the transition to sedentism (Voorhies 2004), as well as for the early emergence of complex societies (Clark 2004; Clark and Blake 1994). Thus it is important to SEVEN A History of Disaster and Cultural Change in the Coatán River Drainage of the Soconusco, Chiapas, Mexico Gerardo Gutiérrez disaster, cultural change in the coatán 147 work against humans (Olcina Cantos and AyalaCarcedo 2002:43). More recently, anthropologists and historians have engaged in the broader study of disasters (Oliver-Smith and Hoffman 2002:5). Their interest is based on understanding the intricate relationship between nature and society and how human action or inaction aggravates or facilitates the occurrence of disasters originally considered a strictly natural phenomenon. In this approach the theoretical tradition of anthropology has begun to question the false dichotomy between nature and society and has put front and center the role of human agency in the creation of disasters, which, for lack of a better word, are called “socionatural” (Oliver-Smith 2002:41; Wallace 1956). This perspective argues that disasters occur within the context of historically created patterns of vulnerability. The factors involved in the formation of these patterns of vulnerability are location, infrastructure, sociopolitical organization, distribution and production systems, and the ideology of a particular society (Oliver-Smith and Hoffman 2002:3). Philosophically, the origins of this approach would be found in Rousseau’s reply to Voltaire’s Candide. For Rousseau there is no such thing as an “evil” nature, and the causes of disasters lie in humans’ actions and choices in their search for never-ending “progress” and economic growth. It is humans who have constructed thousands of buildings and economic infrastructure along tectonic faults, in volcanic regions and alluvial fans and plains (Olcina Cantos and Ayala-Carcedo 2002:53). From this perspective, disasters and hazards can be converted into modular anthropological concepts. Operationally, Oliver-Smith and Hoffman (2002:4) define the concept of disaster as a process/event combining a potential destructive agent/force from the natural, modified, or built environment and a population in a socially and economically produced condition of vulnerability , resulting in a perceived disruption of the customary relative satisfactions of individual and social needs for physical survival, social order, and meaning. and how they can rapidly cause the demise of previously important settlements and favor the emergence of others. Based on this analysis, in the third section of the chapter I will compare the sedimentation patterns left by Hurricane Stan with those that buried Cantón Corralito, a thriving...

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