[Radix] Definition and perception

[James Lewis]

I am reminded of the need to somehow relate definition of disaster 
with its perception. I was concerned that so much definition appeared 
remote from the contexts where disasters happened and were 
experienced. Catalogues were produced in important institutions of 
disasters that had always happened elsewhere; who were they - or we - 
to decide if it had been a disaster, if it had been of large or small 
magnitude, or even if it had been significant enough for our (remote) 
post-disaster attention. The local scale of the event seemed of much 
greater significance.

Some of the disasters to befall island communities never appeared in 
those catalogues - if I was interested enough to find out. 
Conversely, a disaster listed was often an event that was "every day" 
in its location, which speedily returned to normal or, if one 
disaster had been listed, there would have been others of greater 
local significance that were not. At the same time, it is true that 
some were exaggerated, seemingly for the benefits that were thought 
to ensue; figures of housing destruction after one cyclone greatly 
exceeding figures of housing stock per district. Thus cataloguing can 
serve to eventually destroy its own system.

Much of this is in my book, still in print and electronically 
available this year - "Development in Disaster-prone Places: Studies 
of Vulnerability" 1999, IT Publications (now Practical Action), London.

  James




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