Dual Disasters: the temporality of humanitarian crisis and the limits of knowledge production
Mar 13, 2012, 12:45pm-2pm
This talk examines how environmental disasters interact with political crises that precede them. Central to this task is the concept of "dual disasters", where a humanitarian crisis with human-made political roots overlaps with a humanitarian crisis induced by environmental disaster. I will draw on the case of the 2004 tsunami and its impact in Aceh, Indonesia, and in Sri Lanka, where decades of civil war preceded the death and destruction of the waves, to develop this concept.
My aim then is to engage the audience in a quest to find a method that would allow for the study of dual disasters in a temporal sense. How, if at all, can one ascertain the impact of an earlier crisis or crises on the current one(s)? I am interested in whether this question is answerable in the current case of Somalia where, in effect, the dual disasters of drought and war have returned to the region almost two decades later.
– Jennifer Hyndman: Department of Geography, Centre for Refugees Studies
| Location: | 140 Health, Nursing and Environmental Studies Building |
| Sponsor: | Faculty of Environmental Studies, Dept of Geography and Centre for Refugee Studies |
| Posted by: | Joanne Guidi |
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