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Vulnerability to Natural Hazards: Philosophical Reflections on the Social and Cultural Dimensions of Natural Disaster Risk

In: Risk Analysis of Natural Hazards

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Coeckelbergh

    (De Montfort University)

Abstract

Risk analysis and risk management are ways for humans to cope with natural disaster risk. This chapter connects discussions about risk with reflections on nature, technology, vulnerability, and modernity. In particular, it raises questions regarding the natural/human distinction and how human societies and cultures (should) cope with risk. How “natural” are hazards, given human interventions in and interpretations of events, and what are the limitations of “objective” modern approaches to risk? The chapter argues that coping with risk related to natural disasters should be sensitive to the social and cultural dimensions of risk. For this purpose it proposes the concept of “vulnerability transformations”. It focuses on the experience and phenomenology of natural hazards in relation to existential vulnerability, and, taking a cross-cultural perspective, shows that apart from modern scientific thinking there are also other, less modern ways to cope with natural hazards.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Coeckelbergh, 2016. "Vulnerability to Natural Hazards: Philosophical Reflections on the Social and Cultural Dimensions of Natural Disaster Risk," Risk, Governance and Society, in: Paolo Gardoni & Colleen Murphy & Arden Rowell (ed.), Risk Analysis of Natural Hazards, edition 1, chapter 0, pages 27-41, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:rischp:978-3-319-22126-7_3
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-22126-7_3
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