I. Monster floods and bugs Flashcards
(28 cards)
What is meant by ‘actors’ in terms of ANT?
Components of a system that are individuals, fixed and established (think ‘structure’, Pink Floyd’s The Wall)
What is meant by ‘networks’ in terms of ANT?
The connections between individual points thereby turning these points into actors within an operating system (think ‘agency’, Madness’ Baggy Trousers).
What is a risk assessment?
How an organisation or authoritative body goes about thinking and shaping a hazard, assessing the probability of the hazard and what to do about it.
How has modernity been defined? (e.g. by Pickering, 2006; Latour, 2011)
Characterised by dualism between man and nature, as closed, and rigid, dominated by science and presentations of the world as controllable, knowable, conquerable, associated with the rise of institutions, technocentric optimism and scientific ‘fact’ and development as progress
What does Latour’s diagram of Purification and Translation mean?
A way to represent the dischord Latour argues exists between the mindset of ‘moderns’ compared to what is really happening.
Work of purification: a human act to separate nature from humans, what ‘moderns’ tell themselves they are doing
Work of translation: the act of separation that results in humans interacting with nature and making new relationships, attachments and connections (unknowingly making hybrids)
What are the three main components of a risk assessment (using example of flood risk)? What does such a process represent?
Identification: calculated via historic record e.g. peak hydrographs (volume, flow rate, lag time).
Estimation: calculated as ‘probability of a river discharge or severity within time frame i.e. 1-in-100, relative damage.
Evaluation: debates based on science in social, political arena, political decision as to what should be done/invested in.
A representation of a modernist approach.
How does risk identification go wrong?
Determined by historical records i.e. what has been identified as a hazard in the past and how it behaved.
This is problematic because when we make changes to our environment, the hazard won’t occur in the same way as in the past (e.g. increased urbanisation).
In the face of new risks and unprecendented conditions the (recent) past has little to contribute e.g. climate change.
How can risk estimation be problematic?
Impacts vary depending on what is considered an impact, and in using only numbers, a cold and reductionist view of the potential damage is created, that most likely fails to incorporate the extent of social or psychological impacts.
In what ways does risk evaluation fail?
Authorities focussed on the elimination of risk and controlling of nature e.g. ‘denature’ the river, build aqueducts, dams - failure to consider how populations feel or would respond to such decisions.
What can serve as a case study for a modernist approach to risk? Give a little background and explain how its management links to modernist approaches.
The LA River considered “unruly” in past (S. California); important to economysince first settlements through irrigation, supplies, trade etc.
Major floods of 1938 killing 50 -> major public investment into new defences with US Defence Corps -> concrete straightened channels, aqueducts, concrete levees
Flood defences reduce frequency of events but can increase magnitude; (e.g. reduce infiltration, who knows how climate change could increase water levels?!)
How can Latour’s diagram be applied to the LA River?
Translation + proliferation of hybrids i.e. by walling in the river both physically and mentally, have been ignorant to creation of attachments to hydrology/new hazards
Increased proximity to threat - urbanisation nearer river.
Concrete -> less infiltration, more evaporation, leaking dams and aqueducts -> water scarcity (nature bites back, Gray, 1999)
What are the differences betwen ecological and insurable risks (Ewald)? How do these link to flooding?
Insurable: spatially and temporally contained, individual responsibility, controllable, calculable, insurable against.
-> modernist approach views flooding as an insurable risk, through individual responsibility (Collier) and simple technological solutions/control.
Ecological: huge, transcend generations, irreparable, complex cause-effect, blurred good/evil, unintended consequences, incalculable.
-> in believing rivers can be controlled, new relationships with hydrology are ignored, new behaviours are ignored, which could lead (is leading to) megafloods e.g. climate change + failing defences in the UK.
What does Pickering (2006) mean by a ‘modern’ and ‘new’ ontology?
Modern: dualism, detachment, closed, rigid, scientific, technocentric etc. -> a way of being that emphasises mastery/control that views nature as fixed, static, calculable
New: smeared, smudged, attached to nature, flowing, open, harmony with nature, science AND nature
In line with Pickering’s new ontology and Latour’s theses, what could be a better paradigm? Refer to LA River. Any problems?
A new paradigm of human ecology that redefines hazards as social issues, to be seen as an assemblage of dynamic processes involving climate, hydrology and sociology.
Living WITH the river…
Groups now acting to counter concrete industrialisation around river (lobbying)
Encouraging restoration and creation of public spaces e.g. Friends of the LA River (1985 began)
Transform river and its surrounding into a ‘green belt to reunite communities’.
e.g. natural/soft riverbed, planned inundation being called for by river activists.
But need to take care not to romanticise the concept, can’t assume this is better for everyone, or that it will be perfect e.g. new green space that won against corporate business not being criticised by locals for being privatised, with closed off events, can’t be easily, frequently used as public open space :(
Give a brief overview of the river example Pickering uses.
Mississppi river:
Urbanised floodplain, artificial raising of embankments, river rose too -> ‘walled city’ New Orleans
US Army Corps of Engineers responsible to ‘go to war with the river’
1963 weird, damaged in 1970s floods -> $300M project to improve defences -> science (which “clouds perception…constant, timeless, calculable, correct vs true)
Towards natural flow? Living with its processes? Imitate seasonal flow?
What is the ‘epidemiological transition’?
Modernist belief that a society can transition through four socioeconomic phases of development, to a society where degenerative diseases take over from contagious disease, but can be treated to elongate life -> towards a disease-free way of life.
What is meant by a ‘contamination approach’? (Rosenberg, 1992 in Hinchliffe, 2015)
Focus is on pathogens and how they’re spread is driven by contact/touch and can thus be controlled through walls, surveillance, separation (top down, geographical, border/wall-based)
What is meant by a ‘configuration approach’? (Rosenberg, 1992 in Hinchliffe, 2015)
Focus is on hosts and how the impact of spread is dependent on individual ecologies and bodies, thus looks to making improvements to welfare, immunity and health i.e. vulnerabilities, resilience (views world as mixed, far points being similar, no longer about distance -> how population generally prepared).
Define ‘antimicrobial’
All chemicals and medicines that can kill or inhibit microorganisms (viruses, bacteria, fungi and protozoa); antibiotic refers to just bacteria.
Outline the four stages of the epidemiological transition? Who made it?
- Age of pestilence – contagious disease and infections, short lives
- Age of receding pandemics – longer lives, improved sanitation, diet
- Age of degenerative and man-made diseases – no more infections, but problems of obesity, smoking, CHD, better socioeconomic status
- Age of delayed degenerative diseases – long life, reduced risk behaviours, new treatments
Omran (1971)
What is the problem with the ET model? What has instead happened?
Modernist, overly optimistic and naive in thining we could have such mastery over disease (although obvs the medical successes of man are pretty darn impressive)
UN (1978) said we would transition to stage 4 by 2000 BUT we have entered a ‘new pandemic age’.
Emergence of new diseases e.g. SARS (2002), AIDS/HIV, BSE/CJD (80s), Swine Flu, AI, COVID-19.
-> zoonoses + AMR
In what way could we be entering “the perfect storm” regarding ‘monster bugs’?
Climate change - harder to live in circumstances, extreme weathers, weaker populations
Extreme poverty - increasing from 6.2 M to 18.7 M by 2030 (World Bank, 2016); weak populations and unsanitary conditions -> spread and death
Time-space compression - increasing connections across world, as well as their speeds, towards rapid and near unstoppable spread of disease (COVID-19!)
Population growth - so many hosts and such density -> spread
Deforestation - humans increasingly moving into wild animal territory, mixing with them, more chance for human-nonhuman interaction
What are the topographic and topolgical approaches? What one does/should biosecurity take?
Topographic - contamination focus; top-down, viewing world as compartmentalised, fixed, disease as manageable through the creation of walls, emphasis of borders.
Topologic - configuration focus; viewing world as mixed, interconnected beyond geographical distance, disease as manageable through improved resilience of populations and international communication.
Biosecurity measures that focus only on walls are inappropriate -> separating from nature, ignoring embedded risks that are inevitable if we are to keep up with growing pop and economy (industry pressure) forgets about hosts (Hinchliffe, 2011)
What are ‘zoonoses’ and give examples.
Animal sicknesses e.g. Avian Influenza, SARS, BSE.
