The cultural sense of disasters: Practices and singularities in the context of HIV/AIDS

Geiselhart K, Schlatter F, Orlowski BM, Krüger F (2015)

Publication Status: Published

Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes

Publication year: 2015

Publisher: Taylor and Francis Inc.

Edited Volumes: Cultures and Disasters: Understanding Cultural Framings in Disaster Risk Reduction

Pages Range: 123-144

ISBN: 9780415745581

URI: http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=84942252415&origin=inward

Abstract

Defining a disaster is a cultural act: naming a disaster first starts with recognising societal conditions that are evaluated to be disastrous. Plainly, this can only be done in reference to values and norms. In a second stage, conditions tagged as disastrous become traced to either a hazardous event or to social circumstances and dealings that have reduced people’s resilience, rendered them vulnerable, or hampered their appropriate response to threats. It is thus intelligible that in different cultures, depending on particular perceptions and values, disasters can be substantially different things. Disaster definitions, for example, are created by organisations, institutions or individuals with regard to their own practical assignments. But, then, how can ‘a culture’ be identified, a situation be narrowed down to a ‘disaster’, and appropriate disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures be initiated?

Authors with CRIS profile

Klaus Geiselhart Institut für Geographie Fabian Schlatter Professur für Geographie Benedikt Marko Orlowski Professur für Geographie Fred Krüger Professur für Geographie

How to cite

APA:

Geiselhart, K., Schlatter, F., Orlowski, B.M., & Krüger, F. (2015). The cultural sense of disasters: Practices and singularities in the context of HIV/AIDS. In Krüger, Fred; Bankoff, Greg; Cannon, Terry; Orlowski, Benedikt und Lisa Schipper (Eds.), Cultures and Disasters: Understanding Cultural Framings in Disaster Risk Reduction. (pp. 123-144). Taylor and Francis Inc..

MLA:

Geiselhart, Klaus, et al. "The cultural sense of disasters: Practices and singularities in the context of HIV/AIDS." Cultures and Disasters: Understanding Cultural Framings in Disaster Risk Reduction. Ed. Krüger, Fred; Bankoff, Greg; Cannon, Terry; Orlowski, Benedikt und Lisa Schipper, Taylor and Francis Inc., 2015. 123-144.

BibTeX: Download