Decentring international and institutional famine relief in late nineteenth-century China: in search of the local

This article uses rural gazetteer biographies to examine village and household-level famine relief during the great North China Famine of 1876–9 to deepen our understanding of past relief methods and dynamics at the most local level. Despite the appearance of major works recently on famine in modern China, particularly on the Great Leap Forward, knowledge of Chinese famine relief remains thin and scattered considering the enormity of the subject. Nineteenth-century China saw intensifying international relief activity as well as the emergence of a vibrant charity-relief sector based in China's major cities, leading to the rise of prominent relief institutions in the twentieth century, such as the Chinese Red Cross. But the increasingly intense disasters of China's modern period also saw a surprising persistence of local humanitarian traditions still barely covered by historians.     

The Mediation and Remediation of Disaster: Hurricanes Katrina and Felix in/and the New Media Environment

Hurricanes Katrina and Felix made landfall in 2005 and 2007 on the Gulf Coast of the US and the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua respectively. Despite many economic, political and cultural differences between these two sites, they share a number of interesting similarities. Their inhabitants are subject to similar modes of racialized Othering and internal colonialism, and both places have vital links with the transnational cultural consciousness that Gilroy referred to as the Black Atlantic. Katrina and Felix also occurred at a time when centralized forms of media are increasingly perceived to be in crisis. This crisis is creating new spaces for the development of alternative ways of knowing, watching and making media. This paper draws on recent literature on decolonization by Mignolo, Escobar, Quijano and others to explore the prospects for decolonizing energies within the new media environment and a context of devastation wrought by neoliberalism and disaster. This research examines disasters in/and the new media environment, and suggests that activists should understand the distinctions between mainstream (or corporate) and alternative media, between top‐down and grassroots media, and between “old” and “new” media, in relational and non‐categorical rather than absolute terms. These media realms should be engaged from an awareness of how they interact with and impact upon one another. This research also suggests that disasters must be understood as ongoing and open‐ended events embedded within historical, social, cultural, economic and political processes and systems. Media, policymaking and emergency management practices that are informed by an awareness of this complex embedding, and which are therefore able to take a long‐term view of the unfolding of disasters, will be best equipped to engage effectively, and in democratically responsive ways, with disasters and in particular with the needs of those populations most vulnerable to their impacts.     

从灾害经济学角度对“三年自然灾害”时期的考察

1959～1961年我国经历了“三年经济困难”时期。关于其主要成因,1978年前一直错误地完全归咎于三年自然灾害。但近年来国内外又发表了一系列文章,认为这三年“风调雨顺”,根本没有自然灾害,“人祸”即决策错误是唯一的原因。本文根据对灾情、受灾面积等资料图表的分析,证实这三年发生了持续的严重自然灾害;同时分析了各种决策错误带来的不同影响,重点把粮食作为决定国家经济兴衰的生命线和因果关系链的比较指数,用计量方法分析当时农村因灾减产、因决策错误减产、因高征购而减少粮食存量之间的比例状况。本文的结论是:从农业粮食减产因素看,自然灾害略大于决策错误;从农村一个时期的集中缺粮情况因素看,决策错误影响远大于自然灾害,可以说是“三分天灾,七分人祸”。     

变动中的家与地方:一个关联性的研究综述

家与地方的关系是地方性研究中的关键性命题。人本主义地理学认为地方根植是家的根本属性,批判地理学则从社会建构的角度阐释家与地方的动态关联。在全球化和灾害影响下,家与地方的联结方式不断变动,呈现出异常丰富的多样性。本文从理论脉络入手,对全球化进程中因绅士化引起的家的置换,无家可归与家在他乡,以及离散者的漂移之家等现象进行了分析;并从灾民自我调适行为和灾后重建计划的实施方面,讨论了灾害影响下家的重构与认同问题。相关学科和国际研究在这一领域的快速发展,将为国内社会文化地理学对家的探索创造良好的机遇。     

综合城市灾害风险管理:创新的途径和新世纪的挑战

21世纪的城市发展绝不仅仅是经济实力、科学与信息之争,必然是包括生态环境及减灾防灾在内的城市安全度之争。可以说21世纪城市综合防灾减灾能力的高低,将成为全面衡量城市整体功能及其安是针对城市进行的全灾害的管理,它贯穿于灾害管理全过程,集中于灾害风险和承灾体的脆弱性分析并强调多层面、多元化和多学科的参与合作的全面整合的灾害管理模式。本文介绍了综合城市灾害风险管理的必要性、内涵和原则;综合城市灾害风险管理的对策和实施过程;在此基础上探讨了综合城市灾害管理的实施战略和实施途径。     

Natural disasters and relief assistance: Empirical evidence on the resilience of U.S. counties using dynamic propensity score matching

This paper utilizes a novel dynamic propensity score matching approach for multiple cohorts of U.S. counties between 1989 and 1999 to examine local economy resilience to rare natural disasters. Affected counties are sorted based on disaster intensity and are carefully matched to similar counties that did not experience a disaster. A difference‐in‐difference estimator compares trends of affected counties’ postdisaster business establishments, employment, and payroll to counterfactual trends in the matched counties. All affected counties experienced short‐run drops in economic activity that was particularly noticeable in higher‐intensity disasters. In the longer run, less distressed counties returned to their estimated counterfactual trends, but counties with lower predisaster socioeconomic conditions still lagged in growth, particularly in cases of lower‐intensity disasters. Policymakers can use this information to better prepare responses to future disasters.     

Remembering and forgetting 1974: the 2011 Brisbane floods and memories of an earlier disaster

The city of Brisbane, capital of the Australian state of Queensland, sits on a floodplain and has been struck by two devastating flood disasters in the last 50 years. This article contributes to the growing literature on disaster memory by tracing memories of a flood in 1974 as they were constructed and re‐enacted in a more recent disaster in 2011. The article examines how disaster memories shape local identities and considers how such memories influence policy and local knowledge, doing so by reference to an analysis of three forms of memory media—personal narratives, news media reporting, and built memorials. At times, memories of 1974 enabled Brisbane residents to prepare for an oncoming flood and to understand the scope of the 2011 event. Yet other memories produced a form of forgetting by positioning the earlier flood as a successfully navigated event now safely contained in the past. Findings from the analysis thus point to the importance of understanding memories of past disasters as a critical element of disaster planning and management.     

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。     

明代东南地区的海潮灾害

海潮灾害是古往今来危害人类生命和财产安全的主要灾害之一。明代我国东南地区是海潮灾害频发的地区。海潮灾害主要是由台风引起的,多发生在阳历的6月至11月间;和一般的水灾相比,海潮灾害具有突发性和狂暴性的特点,因而更容易造成大的危害。明代海潮灾害不仅吞噬大量生灵。还淹没农田。冲毁房舍。毁坏盐场。造成极大的财产损失。明代对海潮灾害的救治和防范措施有赈灾、蠲免和加固海塘以及佥补灶丁等。