Risk and Vulnerability Flashcards
(20 cards)
What is the central question explored in this lecture on risk and vulnerability?
Are disasters natural or social?
What does it mean to say disasters are “socio-natural”?
It means disasters result from both environmental events and social conditions, such as inequality, infrastructure, and preparedness.
What is a hazard in environmental geography?
A hazard is a physical manifestation of environmental change or climatic variability (e.g. flood, storm, drought), representing both an ongoing state and an event.
How is risk defined in this lecture?
Risk is the probability of an undesirable event or exposure to harm, shaped by historically produced, socially and spatially differentiated conditions.
What is vulnerability?
Vulnerability is the degree to which a system or group is susceptible to and unable to cope with adverse effects from environmental or social changes.
What is meant by “vulnerabilization”?
It is the process by which people are made vulnerable to extreme events through social, political, and economic factors.
What are the two major approaches to analyzing vulnerability?
The risk-hazards approach (focused on the hazard) and the entitlements-livelihoods approach (focused on social systems and lack of access to resources).
According to Jesse Ribot, what produces vulnerability?
Vulnerability is produced by social inequality, poor infrastructure, inadequate planning, and lack of access to resources—not by hazards alone.
What does Neil Smith mean by “There’s no such thing as a natural disaster”?
Every aspect of a disaster, from its causes to its consequences, is shaped by social structures and decisions.
In the case of Hurricane Katrina, what factors contributed to people’s vulnerability?
Racial segregation, budget cuts to infrastructure, unregulated development, limited preparedness, and a militarized response.
What were the dominant explanations of famine prior to critical analysis?
Bad weather, food scarcity, environmental degradation, population growth, and low productivity.
What is the critical puzzle regarding the Sahel famine of 1972–74?
Why did those who grew food die in the famine, and how did regular seasonal hunger escalate into widespread famine?
What adaptive capacities did rural Sahelian communities traditionally rely on?
Subsistence ethics (risk aversion, intercropping) and moral economies (reciprocity, gift-giving, and grain borrowing).
How did colonialism increase vulnerability in the Sahel?
Through cash taxation, forced commodity production (e.g., groundnuts), erosion of traditional safety nets, and integration into global markets.
What is the significance of the statement: “Drought ≠ Famine”?
A drought might trigger famine, but famine is primarily caused by socio-economic factors and inability to cope with environmental stress.
Why is the naturalization of disaster problematic?
It ignores the social, political, and economic causes of disasters and shifts responsibility away from human systems and decisions.
According to Watts, what must be considered to understand disasters like famine?
The broader social and political context, including global economic structures and historical transformations caused by human activity.
What are some critical explanations for famine beyond environmental causes?
Colonial policies, global market structures, erosion of social systems, food price speculation, and lack of purchasing power.
What are some critical solutions to famine?
Addressing poverty, resource redistribution, regulating food markets, promoting subsistence farming, and improving market access.
How do our conceptualizations of risk and vulnerability shape our responses?
They determine whether responses focus narrowly on the event or address the deeper, structural causes of vulnerability.
