Root Causes of Social Vulnerability: Historical

1. Root Causes of Social Vulnerability: Historical Session 4

2. Session Objectives • Understand that there are various, highly divergent ways of defining what history is • Appreciate a number of ways in which knowledge of history can be helpful in emergency and disaster management • Be able to describe the kinds of evidence that are used in the study of history and different ways of defining historical explanation • Review examples of the role of disaster in U.S. history and the history of disaster management • Review examples of the role of disaster in world history and the history of international response to disasters

3. What is History? The Past Periods, Epochs Heritage

4. The Past • Is “the past” an accumulation of events that happen? • How do we determine what a discrete “event” is? • Are all events or happenings of equal importance from the point of view of structures, processes, patterns? • Or are there some events without which the stream of future events is likely to have been dramatically different?

5. Periods, Epochs • Positivism – the past is composed of “events” or “happenings” • Processes – larger structures in history • Periods/Eras/Epochs – larger patterns of history • Historicism – periods of history are unique in each society and have to understood by sharing the “feeling” of society as well as knowing “facts” • Universal History – large processes (such as colonialism, Cold War, globalization, progress) that involve all societies everywhere • Is “progress” simply human beings actualizing their potential? • Is “progress” a filter through which only some societies have viewed history? • Power Models – economic and political power held by limited numbers of individuals drive events • Post-Modernism – history is all discontinuous and depends completely on personal points of view

6. Heritage • A common sense of identity • Can imply personal or collective responsibility, obligations, rights, and privileges • The view takes little account of events or processes that are external to their defined locality or group

7. Tapping local knowledge Oral traditions can provide information about extreme events not well documented by external sources Lived experience and memory of elderly can be a source of how people used to cope with extreme events Building risk awareness Events that occur infrequently are not well remembered Older generation can be integrated as a means of passing on awareness Mobilizing local participation in risk reduction Learning from past mistakes Can measure progress by studying how a specific locality dealt with extreme events in the past Benchmarking may be useful to judge contemporary policy Reversing root causes of vulnerability Root causes have origins in past beliefs, practices, policies, concentrations of power Reversing root causes is problematic Root causes of vulnerability can be reversed only slowly and with great effort Why Study History? Historical Knowledge and Risk Awareness Historical Knowledge and Public Policy

8. Alternatives to “Official” History Comparative and World History People's History Local History Ethnic Histories

9. Cold winters has been linked to disappearance of early settlements Gales and hurricanes have been implicated in ship wrecks Epidemics affected both indigenous and European populations Development and consolidation of national state was bound up with infrastructure to mitigate effects of extreme natural events Drought preceding the Dust Bowl considered a major turning point in U.S. history Disaster as a Force inU.S. History Early History Later History

10. Disaster and Policy Making in U.S. History • National authorities have to balance requests for disaster assistance from various regions • Although appeals are considered equally legitimate, some events stand out as having triggered new legislation and practices

11. How Disasters Became an International Issue • 1968-1972: The Construction of Humanitarianism • U.S. Involvement in Foreign Disaster Relief • The International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction