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APPROACHES OFSOCIAL SCIENCES TO
DISASTER MITIGATION
Dr. Sébastien P. BoretSocial Anthropologist, Archives, IRIDeS

What are social sciences? Their methods?

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Lecture outline■ 1. Disaster as a process■ 2. Exposure to risk
■ 3. Social vulnerability■ 4. Cultural resilience■ Conclusions

1. DISASTER AS A PROCESS

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Are these all disasters?
NATURAL HAZARD ARE NOT DISASTERS

A disaster is a human centered concept (anthropocentric)

Human
settlement+Hazard=Disaster3

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DISA

TEREventProcess

Process

Drives fast everyday

DI

Process

human-environment relations

SA

EventEarthquake

development

Tsunamipreparedness/unpreparedness

Droughtsocial inequality
Vulnerability
Risk

Avalanche
Flood
Hurricane

TE

R

Process

Reconstruction
Spiritual careFinancial aid
Technological support
international/national solidarity
Political leadership
Resilience
Adaptation…

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housing recovery TIMELINE■ short term: emergency shelter■ intermediate: temporary housing■ long-term: permanent housing

Hazardimage modified based on: http://www.lpdr.org/2012/11/16/the‐anatomy‐of‐a‐disaster/
92. EXPOSURE TO RISK52/15/2019

NATURAL RISKSNatural phenomena bring a setof opportunities and risks.
“The risk inherent in nature
consists of a wide range ofhazards that put constraints onproduction (e.g. frosts affectingagriculture) and on otheraspects of livelihoods and safety(earthquakes, floods, droughts,etc.).” Cannon 1994: 14.

Volcanic mountain – fertile soil
(opportunity) vs. eruption (risk)

Risks are not limited to natural hazards but also depends
on human behaviors. Some time needs dominate risk.

Coastline – Fishing (opportunity) vs. Flood (risk)

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Environmental RISKS
The environment in which humans
live is a social construction.

Nuclear plant, FrancePollution, London 1953

Global warming, Tokyo■ Risk is not an objective fact.
■ Risk perception will dictate people’s adaptation and disastermitigation■ Risk perception and adaptation will be dependent on “political,economic, and social forces, obliging people to adapt to an
institutional environment as well as a natural one.” (Vayda andMcKay 1975)■ ”We can frequently be the cause of our own hazardoussituation.”(Oliver-Smith: 26)

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3 SOCIAL VULNERABILITY

Which car would you prefer tobe in?

Which car would youprefer to drive?

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In a car accident, some people are more vulnerable than others.

If it is true in car accident, why not during a natural hazard?

Vulnerability is not equal within a group, asociety or a culture“Vulnerability is a characteristic of individuals and groups ofpeople who inhabit a given natural, social and economic space,
within which they are differentiated according to their varying
position in society into more or less vulnerable individuals andgroups.”(Cannon 1994: :19)

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DIFFERENCE in Vulnerability

Nepal Earthquake 2015 (7.6M)

Heat wave, Paris 2003 (15,000 victims)

🆚

Tohoku Earthquake 2011 (9.1M)

🆚

Heat wave, Tokyo 1994 (600 victims）

Vulnerability within a group■ The idea that we are all equal in disasters is a myth.
■ Vulnerability is the degree to which people are exposed to risks. Somepeople are more exposed to risk than others, the same way somepeople are more exposed to opportunities than others.
■ Research shows that ethnicity, class, gender, disability, age, poverty,education, and so on makes people more vulnerable than others.
■ Types of vulnerability: livelihood vulnerability, self-protection and socialprotection.

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How to identify VULNERABILITY?
Forensic research

Who are the survivors/victims of theTitanic?

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The social class issue

The gender issue12

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Who are the survivors/victimsof the 2004 Tsunami?

The gender issue13

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Why such a gender difference?
■ Is it about thisphysical strength? NO■ Women tend to workat home near thecoast. Only theirstrength and luck
could save them.
■ Men tend to workinland/city (offices,etc.) where sheltersand escape roots are
more likely to beavailable.

Map of Banda Aceh City, 2017.

How do people create vulnerability?
■ Development: when men build an environment, they make choice that will make (some) people
more vulnerable to the risks of hazards.
■ Inequalities: the more a society is based on principal of inequalities the more it creates
vulnerable people. Class structures, ethnic groups, gender, marginalization (disability, travelers,homeless, etc.).
Attention this idea is relative – if all people are equal in being highly vulnerable, this system still
contributes.
■ Man-made risks: humans can create their own environmental risks through war, conflicts,
technological hazards, nuclear plants, etc.
■ Reducing vulnerability is not just about survival: It includes also reducing the psychological,
social and cultural impacts of disasters.

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The Great East Japan Earthquake, March 11, 2011––––

9.0 magnitude earthquake
tsunami-40 meters run up
fires
nuclear accident and meltdown

THE Great East Japan Earthquake, March 11, 2011

Rias Coast

Rias Coast: lack of buildable land
Source: The Association of Japanese Geographers

Sendai Plain: lack of high land
Sendai Plain

■
■
■
■

20,000 deaths
561 square kilometers inundated
129,000 houses totally damaged
470,000 evacuees ; 127,000 (Jan.’17)

Source: Mainichi Shinbun,
http://mainichi.jp/graphs/20160311/hpj/00m/040/002000g/1215

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Planning for permanent housing
reconstruction

6 DISASTER RESILIENCE

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What isresilience?

Etymology 語源■ Latin resilire or resilio meaning to bounce
23-79 AD, Pliny the Elder, Natural Philosopher, leap offrogs. カエルの跳躍■ 14-17th Century, Middle French, résiler, retract orcancel■ 16th century, English resile, to return to former
position or bouncing back17

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First USAGE FOR DISASTER■ December 1854 Tokai Earthquake, Shimoda City(Tokyo)■ Earthquake 8.4M
■ Tsunami 4〜6m
■ American researchers described used resilienceas “the ability to withstand the effects ofearthquake.”

A boat was reported to have been stranded by a tsunami,
Illustrated London News, 1856.

Shimoda City, Shizuoka

SYSTEMATIC
APPLICATION
系統て⽤法■ Civil protection, 1867:“a resilient steel beamsurvives theapplication of a force
by resisting it withstrength (rigidity) andabsorbing it with
deformation(ductility).” (Alexander,2013, 2710).

Image of a resilient beam

Earthquake resilient building, Tokyo18

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SYSTEMATIC
APPLICATION■ Social analogy: “the strengthof a human society understress is its ability to devise
means of resisting disasterand maintaining its integrity(coherence), while ductilitylies in its ability to adapt tocircumstances produced by
the calamity in order tolessen their impact.”(Alexander 21013 : 2710).

Image of a resilient society• Preparation• Adaptation• Sustainability• GovernanceIn a car accident, some people are more resilient than others.
The resilience of some creates the vulnerability of others.

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RESILIENT SOCIETIES
is adaptation

Example of cultural adaptation/resilience (1)Tsunami culture
Simeulue Regency, Indonesia(Population: 88,335)
 Jan 4, 1907: Earthquake M 7.6
earthquake, tsunami 10~20m,
50~70% of death.
 Dec 26 2004: M 9.2 earthquake,
10~20m tsunami, Dec 26 2004, 3victims.
 People were saved through oral
history: The story of Smong (tsunami).
(Rahman et al. 2017)20

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Message of the SMONG STORY

If you feel a large earthquake

check if the sea recedes

Tell everyone to evacuate

If it does, it means thata smong is coming

EXAMPLE SMONG STORY (Rahmanet al. 2017)
DevayanEnglishEnggel mon sao curito

Please listen to this story

Inang maso semonan

One day in the past

Manoknop sao fano

A village was sinkingUwi lah da sesewan

That's what has been told

Unen ne alek linon

Starting with earthquakes

Fesang bakat ne mali

Followed by a giant wave

Manoknop sao hampong

The whole country was sinking

Tibo-tibo mawi

Immediately

Anga linon ne mali

If the strong earthquake isUwek suruik sahuli

Followed by the lowering of seawater

Maheya mihawali

Please find in a hurry

Fano me singa tenggi

A higher place.

Ede smong kahanneThis is called Smong

Turiang da nenekta

A story of our ancestors.

Miredem teher ere

Please always remember

Pesan dan nafi daThis message and instruction

Smong dumek-dumek moSmong is your bath

Linon uwak-uwakmo

Earthquake is your swing bed

Elaik keudang-kedangmo

Thunderstorm is your music

Kilek suluh-suluhmo

Thunderlight is your lamp21

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Example of Adaptation/Resilience (2)Famine Governance (& evacuation)
Tikopia, Solomon Archipelago(Population: 1,200)
 1952-53 Typhoons
 Famine, 2/3 death perweek
 People changed theirtraditional mode ofsubsistence throughadaptation

Here is a complex process of adaptationAbandonment offallow period

Redefinition ofagriculture rights

MAXIMIZATION OF
FOOD RESOURCES

Crime and thief
repression

Increased
Resilience

Diminution of the costs offunerals and weddings rituals

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BUT: Resilience of some can create the vulnerability of others!
Solution

Resilience

Vulnerability

CLIMATE CHANGE & VULNERABILITY

We need to have a comprehensive and global view of disaster mitigation.

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The need to combine vulnerability & resilience
Vulnerability: Focus is on the socio-economic creation of people exposition to risk. It involves aclear, economically and politically induced condition that theorizes the way that people areexposed to a lesser or greater degree of risk.
Resilience: Focus is on natural hazard. Resilience examines the degree to which human action
makes it possible for a social– ecological system to survive, revive or ‘‘tip’’ (Adger 2000).
Danger of focusing only on resilience:■ The resilience approach is in danger of a realignment towards interventions that subsumes
politics and economics into a neutral realm of ecosystem management, and which
depoliticizes the causal processes inherent in putting people at risk.
■ The policy requirements of a vulnerability approach are clear: the need to reduce vulnerability
through interventions in the economic and political allocation of resources.

The cause of VULNERABILITY andthe solution for RESILIENCE = disaster mitigation
Vulnerabilty

Resilience

Social + Nature Research24

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Conclusions 1
Disaster is a process not an event but a process.
Disasters happen when a natural hazard strikes vulnerable
people. They are socially constructed.
Vulnerability (gender, class, poverty, disability, age, etc.) is
specific to the culture, politics, and society that created it.
Understanding the cause of vulnerability enables us tomitigate and reduce disaster.

Conclusions 2Resilience is a concept that focus on increasing the capacityof societies to absorb and bounce back after a disaster.
Resilience includes processes of preparedness, adaptation,sustainability, governance, and so on.
The study of resilience and vulnerability together achieveboth theoretical and practical goals of disaster mitigation.

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