The Political Biography of An Earthquake
Aftermath and Amnesia in Gujarat, India
Price: 950.00 INR
ISBN:
9780199453689
Publication date:
11/08/2014
Paperback
330 pages
235.0x158.0mm
Price: 950.00 INR
ISBN:
9780199453689
Publication date:
11/08/2014
Paperback
330 pages
235.0x158.0mm
First Edition
Edward Simpson
Suitable for: Institutional libraries—departments of politics, sociology, anthropology, South Asia studies. Students and scholars of politics, sociology, anthropology, disaster management studies, South Asia studies; journalists and the media.
Rights: SOUTH ASIA RIGHTS (RESTRICTED)
First Edition
Edward Simpson
Description
For those so-minded, the aftermath of an earthquake presents opportunities to intervene. Thus, in Gujarat, following the disaster of 2001, leaders were deposed, proletariats created, religious fundamentalism incubated, the state restructured, and industrial capitalism expanded exponentially. Rather than gazing in at those struggling in the ruins, as is commonplace in the literature, this book looks out from the affected region at those who came to intervene. Based on extensive research amid the dust and noise of reconstruction, the author focuses on the survivors and their interactions with death, history, and with those who came to use the shock of disaster to change the order of things. Edward Simpson takes us deep into the experience of surviving a ‘natural’ disaster. We see a society in mourning, further alienated by manufactured conditions of uncertainty and absurdity. We witness arguments about the past. What was important? What should be preserved? Was modernisation the cause of the disaster or the antidote? As people were putting things back together, they also knew that future earthquakes were inevitable. How did they learn to live with this terrible truth? How have people in other times and places come to terms with the promise of another earthquake, knowing that things will fall apart again?
First Edition
Edward Simpson
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
First Edition
Edward Simpson
Features
- Rather than gazing in at those struggling in the ruins, as is commonplace in the literature, this book looks out from the affected region at those who came to intervene. It is the only ethnographic of the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, and it one of the very few extended case studies of a 'natural' disaster that provides an on-the-ground approach to understanding the social-political-economic-religious interests at play. It is a significant contribution to humanitarian literature and humanitarian ethnography. It contains several photographs and maps across the book to enrich the study.
First Edition
Edward Simpson
Description
For those so-minded, the aftermath of an earthquake presents opportunities to intervene. Thus, in Gujarat, following the disaster of 2001, leaders were deposed, proletariats created, religious fundamentalism incubated, the state restructured, and industrial capitalism expanded exponentially. Rather than gazing in at those struggling in the ruins, as is commonplace in the literature, this book looks out from the affected region at those who came to intervene. Based on extensive research amid the dust and noise of reconstruction, the author focuses on the survivors and their interactions with death, history, and with those who came to use the shock of disaster to change the order of things. Edward Simpson takes us deep into the experience of surviving a ‘natural’ disaster. We see a society in mourning, further alienated by manufactured conditions of uncertainty and absurdity. We witness arguments about the past. What was important? What should be preserved? Was modernisation the cause of the disaster or the antidote? As people were putting things back together, they also knew that future earthquakes were inevitable. How did they learn to live with this terrible truth? How have people in other times and places come to terms with the promise of another earthquake, knowing that things will fall apart again?
Read MoreTable of contents
Acknowledgements
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