INTEGRATING INDIGENOUS AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE BASES FOR DISASTER RISK REDUCTION IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

In investigating ways to reduce community vulnerability to environmental hazards it is essential to recognize the interaction between indigenous and scientific knowledge bases. Indigenous and scientific knowledge bases are dynamic entities. Using a Process Framework to identify how indigenous and scientific knowledge bases may be integrated, three communities impacted upon by environmental hazards in Papua New Guinea, a Small Island Developing State, have established how their vulnerability to environmental hazards may be reduced. This article explores the application of the framework within the communities of Kumalu, Singas and Baliau, and how this could impact upon the future management of environmental hazards within indigenous communities in Small Island Developing States.     

Through Hell and High Water: New Orleans, August 29-September 15, 2005

Abstract: In October of 2005 the Historic New Orleans Collectioninitiated an oral history project entitled "Through Hell andHigh Water: New Orleans, August 29–September 15, 2005."The intent of the project was to capture the stories of firstresponders who worked in the New Orleans metropolitan area duringthe storm and the weeks that followed. The interview processhas been linked with the after-action studies done by some ofthe local first-responding agencies and has provided a much-neededoutlet for first responders. To date over three hundred subjectshave been interviewed, and our work thus far has shown us thattop-down methods of documentation do not work with an eventlike Katrina. The almost total loss of communications made itimpossible for high-ranking members of the different agenciesto control or even know what lower-ranking members were doing.As a result it will be necessary to cast a wide net in our documentationeffort.     

Charles Eliot Norton,E.L. Godkin,and the Liberal Republicans of 1872

The Liberal Republican Party of 1872 combined ‘genteel’ intellectuals such as Charles Eliot Norton and E.L. Godkin with hardened politicos like Horace Greeley. It serves therefore as a window on the political thought of Norton and Godkin at a moment when their ideas were tested by exposure to the real world of practical politics. The two men's revulsion at the nomination of Greeley and the debasing of the reform cause exposed their underlying conservatism during this time.     

Making Skins: Initiation,Sorcery, and Eastern Min Notions of Knowledge

In this paper I consider the Kwermin notion of knowledge as ‘making skin’ of physical experience. The skin is acted upon in women's scarification and male initiations with the aim of instilling dispositions in the novices that are conducive to their becoming competent adult beings in their particular sociocultural environment. The scarification of women's abdominal skin is thought to enhance the fertility of their wombs, whereas the acts upon male novices’ skins in the initiation rituals are focused upon making them fierce warriors, vigorous husbands, and respectful communicators with ancestral spirits. It is argued that through the male initiations the Min reenact their joint origins from the ground at Yam (‘mother’) on Oksapmin land. Contrary to this initiatory emphasis on proper skin‐knowledge as fitness of being, sorcerers, and witches are greatly feared as they wrongfully penetrate the skin, either infusing the victim with suicidal desire or extracting its life‐substance until the victim withers and dies.     

Revolutionary possibilities of love in a time of disaster,decolonisation, and diffraction

Representations of love appear across many disciplines and discursive fields that are and should be in conversation with geography. It is imperative that geographers engage in formidable but worthy tasks to distil diverse renderings of love into the regenerative interventions we urgently need. Those interventions require geographically minded interpretations of love to drive radical research, pedagogies, policies, and practices in ways that have direct and indirect effects across the life course and life worlds. Such labours are mediated by state and law, by intersectional relations, or by neuroscience, and involve asking how love underwrites critical infrastructures—of place (making), care and entanglements, colonialism, and human-nature relations in the Anthropocene and posthuman—that lead to the flourishing futures we seek. Rich geographical studies oriented to those tasks still face charges of flattening difference. This commentary picks up one aspect of this agenda: a blind spot in geographical research relating to the ethical imperative to love based on benevolence. Instead, I champion the revolutionary possibilities for geography to inform policies, pedagogies, and practices by using a love based on alterity aligned with social weight, reasserting accessible science as an effective driver of social and system transformative changes. Specifically, I argue for a regenerative socio-political analytic of love in a time of disaster, decolonisation, and diffraction.     

9. MOVING FROM,AND BEYOND,INVENTED CATEGORIES: AFTERWORDS

The decentering of narratives is no longer sufficient for bringing the past into sharper focus. As a discipline, we must contend with the continued power imbalance in the production and circulation of histories. It is necessary to give equal valence to histories produced by embracing a range of historical methods, many of which the essays in this forum explore. Doing so expands understandings of what counts as theory in our histories and their obligations in society.     

论金朝的防灾救灾思想

金朝防灾救灾思想,主要体现在以下几方面:重农思想;广积粮储、崇尚节俭的备荒思想;维护自然生态平衡的和谐的自然观;唯心主义的天命观等方面。金代的防灾救灾思想,既有其积极的唯物主义成分,也有消极的唯心主义成分,体现出封建时代的特点。     

Scientific Credibility,Disagreement, and Error Costs in 17 Biotechnology Policy Subsystems

One of the original objectives of the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) was to shed light on the role of science in policymaking. The ACF depicts subsystem scientists as political actors just like any other. Unfortunately, science has never become a major theme of research within the framework and, as a consequence, its role in policymaking remains under‐theorized, leaving ample room for interpretation. This article seeks to explore the validity of three propositions about the role of science in policy. The first two are derived from the ACF: (i) the capacity of scientists to provide credible advice is affected by the harshness of the political debates dividing the policy subsystem; and (ii) agreement among scientists is just as common as among other groupings of policy actors. The third is derived from an “error costs” argument: (iii) Disagreements among scientists are even more pronounced than disagreements among other policy actors. Using the results of a survey of policy actors in 17 biotechnology subsystems, this article finds support for the first and third propositions. Indeed, scientists' participation in political divisions might even be underestimated by the ACF. The article concludes with attempts to clarify the role of scientists within the ACF, including discussions of ambiguity regarding the role of professional forums and of scientists in between‐coalition learning within policy subsystems.     

Disaster Capitalism and the Quick,Quick, Slow Unravelling of Animal Life

Sea otters have barely survived centuries of colonial and capitalist development. To understand why, I examine how they have been oriented in capitalist social relations in Alaska, and with what effects. I follow sea otters through three overlapping political economic episodes, each of which shapes the next: colonial expansion and the fur trade; petro‐capitalism and the negligent neoliberal state, culminating in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill; and finally, spill cleanup and “green” capitalism, when sea otters are produced as data points and spectacle. In each episode, I describe (1) sea otters’ orientation in relation to capitalism and the state, and (2) the nature and temporality of violence and ecological loss that attends their orientation. In conversation with theorisations of extinction as a “slow unravelling”, I suggest animal life can unravel less slowly than haltingly—quick, quick, slow—and that the unravelling and animals’ orientation in capitalism are co‐constituted.     

Cities,Racialized Poverty,and Infrastructures of Possibility

This essay argues that the study of urban poverty is too often characterised by the disappearance of specific people and bodily politics from our analytic frames, rendering modes of life and politics illegible to scholars. We call for attention to the embodied politics of knowledge production, as neighbourhoods surrounding universities are exploited first as laboratories for poverty scholarship—exemplified in the relationship between the Chicago School’s theory of human ecology and the racialised real estate markets—and then as devalued spaces for creative industries. Following work at the intersection of urban studies and American studies, we call for a relational reading of the archives of dominant poverty scholarship, and for scholarship attentive to the body—as a knowledge project only ever partially recorded in fieldnotes or the archives—as a key site for politics.     

Jeremy Bentham,choice architect: law,indirect legislation,and the context of choice

ABSTRACT

The goal of this paper is to locate indirect legislation within Bentham’s art of legislation, and to distinguish it, as far as possible, from direct legislation. Along the way, some parallels are drawn between indirect legislation on the one hand, and the Nudge theory of Thaler and Sunstein on the other. It will be argued that many expedients categorized by Bentham as indirect legislation are simultaneously exercises of direct legislation. Another set of indirect expedients act on knowledge, and involve efforts to eliminate asymmetries of information between potential offender and potential victim by providing official standards and disseminating a plethora of factual information. Other forms of indirect legislation threaten the coherence of Bentham’s theory of law, firstly by regarding all government actions as exercises in legislation, and secondly by turning the formers of public opinion into legislators. Insofar as some forms of indirect legislation operate by sleight of hand, they conflict with Bentham’s commitment to transparency in the exercise of public power, reflecting a tension between reality and appearance which runs through his thought.     

Ageing in remote and cyclone‐prone communities: geography,policy, and disaster relief

Focusing on the experience of independent‐living older adults, this study explored how those in regional Australian coastal communities have coped with repeated natural disasters. Using an exploratory, mixed‐method, and phenomenological approach, an array of non‐probability snowballing techniques was used to seek participation from residents aged 65 years or more, and from emergency services officers, disaster managers, and community health care providers located in regional communities affected by Cyclone Larry (2006) and Cyclone Yasi (2011). The research found that post‐disaster political decisions have had a negative long‐term impact on local economies, causing outmigration by those seeking employment, and resulting in many elderly residents facing a future without family support. As government policies encourage ageing‐in‐place by providing subsidised in situ care, increasingly older adults are remaining in exposed vulnerable locations, reliant on authorities for their survival both day‐to‐day and during an emergency. Findings also uncovered inconsistent disaster management policies between neighbouring local government councils and an unrealistic reliance on in situ care organisations by disaster managers during preparation and recovery stages of a natural hazard. These results highlight the need for those charged with emergency management to reassess both the future natural hazard adaptive capacities of ageing regional communities and policy responses to such challenges.     

Pandemics,transformations and tourism: be careful what you wish for

Abstract

Disease outbreaks and pandemics have long played a role in societal and economic change. However, the nature of such change is selective, meaning that it is sometimes minimal and, at other times, and change or transformation may be unexpected, potentially even reinforcing contemporary paradigms. A comprehensive overview of pandemics and their effects is provided. This is used to help contextualise the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on tourism and government, industry and consumer response. Drawing on the available literature, factors that will affect tourism and destination recovery are then identified. Some measures will continue or even expand present growth orientations in tourism while others may contribute to sustainability. It is concluded that that the selective nature of the effects of COVID-19 and the measures to contain it may lead to reorientation of tourism in some cases, but in others will contribute to policies reflecting the selfish nationalism of some countries. However, the response to planetary limits and sustainable tourism requires a global approach. Despite clear evidence of this necessity, the possibility for a comprehensive transformation of the tourism system remains extremely limited without a fundamental transformation of the entire planet.     

Geographies of Urban Politics: Pathways,Intersections, Interventions

This paper deals with urban political geographies and, most particularly, with political economy perspectives on urban politics. It offers an account that narrates what I see as influential pathways and intersections, theoretical debates, and methodological developments that have shaped contemporary urban political geographies in this vein since the 1970s, including: the ‘new urban politics’, intersections with postmodernism, and postcolonialism; urban neoliberalism and the contingency of urban politics; and, most recently, poststructural political economy and the notion of assemblage. This leads me to trace the implications of the shift in understanding from urban political geography to geographies of urban politics, and the growing emphasis on practice, contingency, relationality, and assemblage that accompany this shift. I conclude with reflections on new directions, new productive questions and tensions, and on the knowledge politics of how we do and might do contemporary urban political geographies.     

Invisible radiation reveals who we are as people: environmental complexity,gendered risk,and biopolitics after the Fukushima nuclear disaster

The March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, and the subsequent tsunami and release of nuclear contamination from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, is clearly one of the largest disasters of the past century and it has devastated large portions of eastern Japan. In this paper we explore the coping mechanisms of people navigating these landscapes of contamination, as well as examine state policies developed to deal with the disaster. We argue that there has been a significant discrepancy between state policies and the needs of people directly affected by the catastrophe. To more fully examine why this discrepancy exists – and how it is produced – we investigate the complex geographies of contamination and risk near the damaged Fukushima power plant through the conceptual lens of ‘wet ontologies’ coupled with an analysis of state strategies for the governance of the affected populations. In our research we found that Foucauldian theorizations on biopower, neoliberalism and environmental governance can help explain how nuclear power as a social institution can require states to sacrifice the well-being of hundreds of thousands of their citizens in ways that affect people in gendered and age-specific ways.     

Inherited memory,social learning,and resilience: lessons from Spain's Great Blizzard of 1888

The snowstorms that affected the Cantabrian Mountains in the winter of 1888 caused unprecedented damage, and the absence of a “resilient approach” to this episode had several consequences worth further consideration. In this study, we explored interconnections between and among memory, social learning, and resilience by surveying the affected landscapes, conducting interviews with current residents, and reviewing historical sources such as press archives. The mixed method has enabled us to examine the construction and transmission of respondents' memories and to link those narratives to our reading of the presence or absence of risk mitigation actions—especially against snow avalanches. Our analysis has established that the 1888 snowstorms are remembered down the decades in ways that downplay risk, neglect social learning and changes to community practices and capacities to cope with uncertainties, and fail to shape preventive measures against future disasters. These insights have relevance for those interested in how archival research, field observations, and contemporaneous interviews can aid understandings of inherited memory, social learning, and resilience.     

当代中国防灾救灾的成就与经验

我国自古以来就是一个多灾的国家,中华人民共和国成立以后,党和政府组织人民大力防灾救灾,取得了举世瞩目的成就。新中国成立60年来,虽然每一次灾害都对人民的生活、财产和社会发展带来了不同程度的危害和影响,但是随着抗灾救灾能力的不断提高,中国人民战胜了一次又一次重大灾害,积累了丰富的经验。今天的中国,灾害仍是一个十分突出的问题,防灾救灾在相当长的时期内仍将是党和国家的重要工作之一。     

The Obvious in a Nutshell: Science,Medicine, Knowledge,and History

The scope and mission of the history of science have been constant objects of reflection and debate within the profession. Recently, Lorraine Daston has called for a shift of focus: from the history of science to the history of knowledge. Such a move is an attempt at broadening the field and ridding it of the contradictions deriving from its modernist myth of origin and principle of demarcation. Taking the move from a pluralistic concept of medicine, the present paper explores the actual and possible contributions that a history of knowledge can offer to the history of medicine in particular. As we will argue, the history of medicine has always been a history of knowledge, but for good reasons has always stuck to the concept of medicine as its object and problem throughout the ages, including the modern, scientific one. We argue that, in the history of medicine, the demarcation between scientific and non‐scientific represents an accident, but is not foundational as in the case of natural science. Furthermore, the history of medicine programmatically played a role in at least two academic domains (history proper and medical education), adjusting historical narratives of medical knowledge to its audience. Accordingly, we underscore that the history of both science and medicine, as traditionally defined, already provides room for almost the whole spectrum of approaches to history. Moreover, their different myths of origin can, and indeed must, be included in the reflexivity of the historical gaze. We argue that the position towards a history of science, medicine, or knowledge is not a question of narrative or theory, rather, it is a question of relevance and awareness of extant contexts.     

UNDERPOPULATION, TELEVISION ECONOMIES, AND THE POWER OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION

This article addresses the power of popular geographical ‘imaginations’ and ‘knowledges’ to foreclose public debate and, in the process, to reinforce often contentious policies or practices. It argues that historically, a prominent example of such a powerful geographical knowledge has been that of ‘ overpopulation’. The concept of ‘underpopulation’, meanwhile, has been much less discussed, but in this article I argue that it, too, needs to be queried in much the same way that critics have examined claims of overpopulation. I make this case first at a generic level, describing some of the main situations in which notions of underpopulation are popularly invoked, before substantiating it in much greater detail in one specific context: that of the television economy in New Zealand, a country, it is frequently said, with ‘too few people’ to support a publicly funded broadcaster. I show that in this particular instance the underpopulation thesis is backed by flawed arguments, but that none the less it is widely accepted and seldom countered, hence serving to protect its protagonists from disclosing in public debate the real reasons for the television policies they pursue and which the idea of underpopulation actively allows.     

灾害、环境与慈善的相反相成:以乾隆朝直隶乡村社会保障建设为中心

乾隆十三年(1748年),乾隆因“粮政”政策受挫而要求建立义仓系统,试图利用义仓之名再次推动乡里民间积储体系建设。这种由依靠官仓向民仓转变的行为,是乾隆统治政策整体收敛并由“养民”向“教民”转变的一种体现。畿辅义仓体系很好实现了赈济和管制的完美结合,直隶的稳定成为头等重要的事。在全国废除留养资送制度的大背景下,唯有通过留养局体系,才能最大可能减少流民对京师的压力。留养局系统的设立是乾隆对现实的一种无奈妥协和让步。留养局的空间分布特征受交通、自然环境因素的影响。在乾隆十三年统治政策转变这一历史大背景下来看,直隶义仓、留养局系统的建立中,灾害、环境与慈善这三方面的因素以相反相成的形式交织在一起。