I. Monster floods and bugs Flashcards
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?
