1st Edition
The Anthropology of Disasters in Latin America State of the Art
This book offers anthropological insights into disasters in Latin America. It fills a gap in the literature by bringing together national and regional perspectives in the study of disasters.
The book essentially explores the emergence and development of anthropological studies of disasters. It adopts a methodological approach based on ethnography, participant observation, and field research to assess the social and historical constructions of disasters and how these are perceived by people of a certain region. This regional perspective helps assess long-term dynamics, regional capacities, and regional-global interactions on disaster sites. With chapters written by prominent Latin American anthropologists, this book also considers the role of the state and other nongovernmental organizations in managing disasters and the specific conditions of each country, relative to a greater or lesser incidence of disastrous events.
Globalizing the existing literature on disasters with a focus on Latin America, this book offers multidisciplinary insights that will be of interest to academics and students of geography, anthropology, sociology, and political science.
Foreword Ilan Kelman; Prologue Anthony Oliver-Smith; Introduction: Anthropologists studying disasters in Latin America: why, when, how? Virginia García-Acosta; 1. Risk and uncertainty in Argentinean Social Anthropology Ana Murgida and Juan Carlos Radovich; 2. The field of Anthropology of Disasters in Brazil: challenges and perspectives Renzo Taddei; 3. The Anthropology of Disasters that has yet to be: The Case of Central America Roberto E. Barrios and Carlos Batres; 4. Thinking through disaster: ethnographers and disastrous landscapes in Colombia Alejandro Camargo; 5. Anthropologies of Disasters in Ecuador: Connections and Apertures A.J. Faas; 6. The Mexican Vein in the Anthropology of Disasters and Risk Virginia García-Acosta; 7. Is there an Anthropology of Risks and Disasters in Peru? Fernando Bravo-Alarcón; 8. Anthropology of socio-natural disasters in Uruguay Javier Taks; 9. An epistemological proposal for the Anthropology of Disasters: The Venezuelan School Rogelio Altez; Index
Biography
Virginia García-Acosta is a Mexican social anthropologist and historian, as well as a teacher and researcher since 1973 in CIESAS, Mexico. Her research relates to disaster and risk from a historical-anthropological perspective, focused in Mexico and Latin America. Last book Les Catastrophes et l´interdisciplinarité (Louvain, 2017). Forthcoming Hurricanes in Mexico: Five Centuries of History and Memory (Mexico).
