Disasters and Neoliberalism: Different Expressions of Social Vulnerability

320 Pages·2020·7.522 MB·English

by  Gabriela Vera-Cortés, Jesús Manuel Macías-Medrano

Gabriela Vera-Cortés
Jesús Manuel Macías-Medrano   Editors
Disasters and
Neoliberalism
Different Expressions of Social
Vulnerability
Disasters and Neoliberalism
é
Gabriela Vera-Cort s
(cid:129)
ú í
Jes s Manuel Mac as-Medrano
Editors
Disasters and Neoliberalism
Different Expressions of Social Vulnerability
123
Editors
Gabriela Vera-Cortés Jesús Manuel Macías-Medrano
Departamento deSociedady Cultura Departamento deCambio Sociocultural
ElColegio dela FronteraSur(ECOSUR) CentrodeInvestigaciones y Estudios
Villahermosa, Tabasco,Mexico SuperioresenAntropologíaSocial
(CIESAS)
Mexico City,Mexico
ISBN978-3-030-54901-5 ISBN978-3-030-54902-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54902-2
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Foreword
Rediscovering El Dorado: Latin American Contributions
to Disaster Studies
Iamgratefultotheeditors,theauthors,andthepublisherofthiscollectionofstudies.
TheyaddsubstantiallytothegrowingliteratureinEnglishthatfocusesourattention
onLatinAmericaasalaboratoryandpioneerofbothforcesthatcreatedisasterrisk
and efforts to expose those forces and to institutionalize resistance to them. This
collectionalsoadvancesthecauseofdecolonizingresearchintheAmericas(Gaillard
2019). Most of the studies in this volume are based on fieldwork and historical
observation in Mexico (with side journeys into Brazil, Italy, and the USA). These
detailed studies add to other similar collections such as the free, online volume,
ReductionofVulnerabilitytoDisasters:fromknowledgetoaction(Marchezinietal.
2017)thatcombinesofferingsinPortuguese,Spanish,andEnglishthatexploresocial
vulnerability to disaster in Brazil and several Spanish-speaking countries in Latin
America.AlsoinEnglish,isVirginia1Garcia-Costa’seditedbook,TheAnthropology
of Disasters in Latin America (Garcia-Acosta 2020). One can only hope that the
richnessofLatinAmerica’slonghistoryofriskandvulnerabilitycreationaswellas
resistancetothesemalignforcesaremadeaccessibleinEnglishandotherlanguages,
from the hyper-local, such as mutual aid (autogestión) in Puerto Rico following
Hurricane Maria and abandonment by the colonial US federal government
(Garriga-López2019)tothenationalscalesuchcontributingtotheoverthrowofthe
long-hegemonicrulingpartyinMexicoasaresultofitsmalfeasancefollowingthe
earthquakethatdevastatedMexicoCityin1985(Apodaca2017;Riding2017).
South and Central America are highly exposed to natural hazards because
of their great diversity and range of climates, bioregions and topography, location
onthe“rimoffire”(azoneofseismicandvolcanicactivity),andalsobeingaffected
bylong-andshort-termcyclesofhighandlowrainfallduetoENSOPacificOcean
temperature variation, as well as Caribbean hurricanes. Until recently, however,
1Availableforfreedownloadathttps://www.preventionweb.net/publications/view/56269.
v
vi Foreword
studies of the root causes of disaster, that is, their creation or genesis had been
hampered by several conditions.
Firstly,formanyyearstheviewthatdisasterswere“natural”prevailed(Maskrey
1993). Secondly, with independence from Spain and Portugal and the creation of
national government institutions, disasters were generally assigned to the military
whosemandatedidnotextendtopreventionbutwaslimitedtoimmediateresponse
and (with the church) to relief. Thirdly, attention of the state and the emerging
scientificestablishmentwaslimitedtolarge-scaledisastersandnottothenumerous
small-scale landslides, floods and other “everyday” events that undermine liveli-
hoodsandact with aratcheteffect toreinforce poverty(Lavell andMaskrey2014;
Reyes Pondo and Lavell 2012; Wisner et al. 2004). This last-mentioned reflects
long-standing racial and class dichotomies in the hemisphere that privileges the
lives and concerns of urban, White, and mestizo citizens while rendering invisible
rural, indigenous ones. One sees this beginning with the conquista, colonial
administration and economies based on the extraction of mineral wealth and
bio-based commodities such as rubber and sugar cane. The early distinction
between indigenous people andslavesversus theurban elite was reinforced bythe
distinctionbetweenlarge-scalelatifundialandholdingandthesmall-scale“peasant”
minifundiafarms.Thisisnotmerelyalandtenuresystemthathasbroughtsomuch
suffering due to civil wars but also a “model” of society at large (Galeano 1973).
Laboratory and Pioneer
Inthetwenty-firstcentury,viewsandapproachestodisasterinMexicoandtherest
of Latin America have changed. Unrecognized by many in the field of disaster
studiesandmorebroadlyinpolicyandpublicadministrationcircles,LatinAmerica
has been a laboratory for a deadly driver of disaster risk creation in the form of
neoliberalism, particularly focused on the economics of neo-extractivism (Svampa
2019). Although much of Latin America began to develop its own development
path in the inter-war years and through the Second World War, these efforts were
systematically undermined by a post-WWII global system dominated by the USA
(Gunder-Frank 1966).
AsthetwoeditorsofDisasterandNeoliberalism(DN)explain(p.7),widespread
advancesbyanorganizedworkingclassinthe1960sledtoacounterstrategybythe
capitalist class, using legislative and state power reinforced by policies by the
post-warBrettonWoodsinstitutions,theWorldBank,regionaldevelopmentbanks
and IMF, that had been put in place to stabilize and safeguard return on invested
capital.Whattooktheplaceofliberal,democraticgovernmentsandasocialcontract
thatprovidedasafetynetworkforworkerswereneoliberalregimeswhosefocuswas
to create conditions for overseas investment by minimizing labor standards, envi-
ronmental protection, andpublic spending (Harvey2007; Rénique 2005).
Foreword vii
The result in Latin America has been 50 years violent coups (Chile, Argentina,
Brazil)andcivilwars(Colombia,Peru,allofCentralAmerica)aswellasdirectUS
intervention (Panama, Grenada). Citing Therborn (2013), the editors of DN sum-
marize the human cost of this historical development path (p. 10):
“… premature death, fragile health, humiliation, subjugation, discrimination,
exclusion from knowledge of the predominant social life, poverty, impotency,
stress, lack of safety, anxiety, lack of self-confidence and self-love, and exclusion
from opportunities, as well as the necessary resources to act and participate in the
world” as well as “a reduction in life expectancy and inter-generational social
mobility, along with a generally lower quality of life and capacity for survival.”
Thus,LatinAmericawasalaboratoryforthecreationofneoliberalpoliciesthat
werelaterimposedonAfricabytheBrettonWoodsinstitutionsandformercolonial
governments (Wisner 1988). But Latin America was also a pioneer in developing
anunderstandingofdisasteras“faileddevelopment”andpromotingoflocalefforts
ofpeoplecollectivelytoprotectthemselvesfromtheriskscreatedbythedominant
developmentpathway.TherehadbeenearlyvoicessuchasJosuedeCastro(1952),
medical doctor and geographer, who wrote eloquently about how drought in
northeast Brazil was turned into hunger and even famine by a long history of elite
control over land and water. However, the creation of a new paradigm for under-
standing disaster and development accelerated in the late 1980s (Anderson and
Woodrow 1989; Cuny 1983; Maskrey 1989) and the early 1990s, especially with
the publications of the network known as La Red (Wisner, Brenes and Marchezini
2020). This pioneering is available on La Red’s website, for example, Lavell
(1994); Lavell and Franco (1996); Mansilla (1996); Maskrey (1993) and the
translation into Spanish of the Routledge volume, At Risk (Blaikie et al. 1996).
Fromthelate1990sonward,theimpactofUNframeworkfordisasterreduction
(UNISDR2005)anditsprecursorswastobeseen,aswellastheinfluenceofLaRed
andothernetworksofcriticalresearchersandplannersinAsia,Africa,Europe,and
NorthAmericawidelyintheregion.Forexample,criticalresearcherswhohadarole
in shaping new disaster legislation was created in Colombia in 2012. They also
influenced the approach of regional organization that began to link disaster with
development (Ferris and Petz 2013: 49–62). These intergovernmental disaster
agencies include CEPREDENAC in Central America, CDEMA in the insular
Caribbean,andCEPRADEintheAndeanregion.2InBrazil,thelesswell-knownand
morelooselynetworkedcounterpartofLaRedhadaroleinshapingthatcountry’s
disasterlegislationfollowingdeadlylandslidesin2011(Marchezinietal.2017).
Latin America, and in microcosm, Mexico as discussed in Neoliberalism and
Disaster, have many surprises for the reader and valuable experience of relevance
to removing obstacles to public safety such as oligarchy, technocracy, and
2Caribbean Disaster Management Agency (CDEMA) https://www.cdema.org/; Coordination
Center for Natural Disaster Prevention in Central America (CEPRENENAC) http://www.un-
spider.org/sites/default/files/_CEPREDENAC_S.pdf; Andean Committee for Disaster Prevention
and Assistance (CEPRADE) http://cidbimena.desastres.hn/docum/crid/EIRDInforma/ing/No6_
2002/art16.htm.
viii Foreword
necropolitical investment strategies in other parts of the world. In the pressure
cooker constituted by pandemic, post-pandemic recession, resistance to globaliza-
tion, and climate change, what new surprises will emerge?
London, England Ben Wisner
June 2020
References
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Contents
1 Disasters and Neoliberalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Gabriela Vera-Cortés and Jesús Manuel Macías-Medrano
Part I Social Vulnerability to Disasters in Urban Contexts
2 DisastersasaSocialRelapseinNeoliberalCapitalism.TwoCases
Analyzed in Developed Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Jesús Manuel Macías-Medrano
3 Flood Management Through Financial Cost Transfer Schemes
in Mexico City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Jorge Damián Morán-Escamilla
4 Social Vulnerability: Learnings from the September 19, 2017,
Earthquake in Mexico City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Patricia Eugenia Olivera
5 “On the Banks of the Rio Bravo…”: Social Construction
and Perception of Flood Risk in Irregular Settlements . . . . . . . . . . 97
Xavier Oliveras-González, Teresa Elizabeth Cueva-Luna,
and Rosa Isabel Medina-Parra
6 Temporary Shelters and Health Services for Older Adults
in Floods in the Metropolis of Monterrey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Rosalía Chávez-Alvarado
Part II Social Vulnerability to Disasters in Rural Contexts
7 SpatialReconfigurationandRelocationsAfter Disasters inRural
Contexts: The Case of Tacotalpa, Tabasco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Gabriela Vera-Cortés
xi