CfP: Papers for AAS panel on Disaster Temporality
We’re
3 Japan anthropologists looking for 2 more papers for the panel we’re
organizing below (draft abstract) for the Association for Asian Studies
(AAS) conference in Washington, DC, in March 2018. We want to put
together a cross-border and interdisciplinary panel, so we’re
particularly interested in papers outside of our expertise. Please send
abstracts to chika.watanabe@manchester.ac.uk by July 20th
Disaster Temporality: Alternative Pasts and Possible Futures
What
if a mass earthquake struck Tokyo tomorrow? What if evacuation centers
had been effective during Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines? What if our
estimates of future disasters are unable to account for demographic and
climate changes?
As events of rupture, disasters provoke
counterfactual "what if" questions that call for alternative histories
and futures (Clarke 2006). People must assess what went wrong (or right)
and how that "lesson" can be used to expand the imaginable, and thereby
be better prepared for the future--as well as to come to terms with the
past. This panel investigates how disasters push actors across the
Asia-Pacific to reevaluate the region's histories and futures in the
face of increasingly destructive "natural" disasters. As the most
disaster-prone region in the world (ESCAP 2016), the Asia-Pacific
presents a context in which people have to negotiate the relationship
between experiences of (past) catastrophe with strategies of (future)
preparedness in short spaces of time. The temporality of disasters is
not neatly linear, but cyclical, compressed, and often messy. By
comparing case studies between X, X, and X, we explore how the
interconnected histories in the region impact the ways that people
rework the past and future in contingent directions (Oakes 2017). Gagne
explores how the intersection of national policies, local recovery
plans, and ongoing displacement creates a "zoned liminality" for
evacuees of the 2011 disaster in Japan. Kimura and Watanabe examine how
Japanese aid actors re-envision Japan's experience with disasters into
the future of preparedness in other countries such as Chile. [Add about
other papers.] The panel offers a cross-border and interdisciplinary
perspective on how disasters are reshaping people's formulations of the
region's temporal trajectories.
Contact Info: Chika Watanabe, University of Manchester, Social Anthropology
Contact Email: chika.watanabe@manchester.ac.uk