Disasters and 'conditions of possibility

Rethinking causation through an analysis of earthquakes in Nepal

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3897409
AutoresMark Liechty (0000-0002-0435-5074, Professor of Anthropology and History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences University of Illinois at Chicago United States, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume46
Fascículo1
Páginas185-205
Data de publicação2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoDisasters (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0361-3666 • E-ISSN: 1467-7717
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/disa.12459
PMID32772394
OpenAlexW3047695315
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas29

What causes a disaster's aftermath? Scholars have increasingly turned to historical approaches that link outcomes to pre-disaster sociopolitical dynamics. Disasters lead to 'critical junctures' that 'trigger' events that unfold in the wake of the initial phenomenon. This paper argues that the 'critical junctures' paradigm shares limitations with 'path dependency' theory from which it is derived, namely a tendency towards historicism-a functionalist teleology better able to explain continuity than change. As an alternative, this analysis draws on Michel Foucault's understanding of 'conditions of possibility' as a way of rethinking agency/causation, moving away from individual subjects, events, or even historical conditions towards, instead, the new, radically destabilised 'epistemological field' emerging in the disaster's aftermath. This paper examines a series of devastating earthquakes in Nepal to consider how post-disaster 'epistemological fields' present new 'conditions of possibility' within which new ideas, actions, and outcomes become thinkable and possible in ways that pre-disaster historical conditions could not have predicted

Agency (philosophy · Causation · Economic geography · Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Geography · Historicism · Path dependency · Phenomenon · Social science · Sociology · Teleology · Disaster Management and Resilience · Global Security and Public Health · Health and Conflict Studies · History · Philosophy