Gregory Button: Disaster Culture: Knowledge and Uncertainty in the Wake of Human and Environment Catastrophe

Media coverage on day one of the disaster: Shattered faces, grime, fear and angst. Dead animals. People screaming, people crying. Panicked masses and confident experts. A month later: no news. This timeline must be familiar to people who watch television or read the newspapers. Disasters are often portrayed as exceptional, confusing, surprising, singular events. At the heart of the book lies uncertainty: what is it, how is it produced and dealt with and whose uncertainties get heard in the wake of a disaster? Through a very well-documented series of case-studies, Gregory Button shows how powerful institutions such as the media, government agencies, and corporations use science and the law to repeatedly create and maintain (excessive) uncertainty. Uncertainty that blurs the assignment of responsibility, the assessment of impacts and the just allocation of compensations to disaster victims. This is also a book about the active efforts of local people to regain control over disasters, re-conceptualized here as political events. Beyond a pure theoretical discussion on the nature of disasters or a simple account of their impacts, Button preserves the specificities of each disaster narrative its voice while recognizing common threads. To do so, Button presents findings from three decades of fieldwork on disasters focusing more specifically on the oil industry (four out of six of the case-studies are directly oil-related). The book is particularly relevant for hazards planners, researchers and students but will also interest readers involved with environmental and social justice and the social-construction of risk. The book opens with the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in Alaska (1989) and the controversies surrounding remediation (e.g., debates over the use of dispersants, oil burning and fertilizers), potential health and environmental impacts and the proper course of action regarding animal rescue efforts. I was particularly intrigued by the second chapter entitled ‘Uncertainty and social conflict over animal rescue’where Button’s anthropology background becomes evident. The chapter illustrates how different groups native vs. non-native, environmentalists vs. scientists, Alaskans vs. non-Alaskans relate to animals impacted by the oil spill. Conflicting worldviews over what needs to be saved and what needs to be prioritized become evident. These differences are deeply tied to the notion of affect and its translation into politics. Most striking here is the contrast between funds allocated to the rehabilitation of iconic otters compared to the compensations offered to local and native communities. Following an oil spill in the Shetland in the UK in 1993, similar controversies regarding the use of dispersants and their impacts on public health and the food chain unfold. The case-study shows how policies regarding access to information can obstruct disaster management. Indeed, due to information laws protecting commercial interests, local officials were unable to divulge the chemical composition of dispersants used thereby endangering public health. The subsequent two chapters focus on ‘disaster(s) within disaster(s)’in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Building on the experiences of St. Bernard Parish residents following an oil spill in Murphy’s Oil refinery in Louisiana, Button clearly