Section I
Earth
Earth is one of the classical elements – along with air, water, and fire – and
was once understood as foundational to the material world. For the Ancient
Greeks, earth spoke of matter and the terrestrial realm, and in other parts
of the world in different traditions was symbolized by, for example, the bull
and bird (Christian), lotus (Hindus), and house (Aztecs).
Modern science has provided an alternative configuration of the material
world – favouring chemical elements comprised of atoms and comprising
compounds, and negating place-based specificity. As gases, liquids, and
solids, these chemicals are understood as the physical basis of a material
world with universalized and universalizing properties.
Such universalism depends, as Law and Mol (2001, p. 609) observe,
on ‘never asking where-questions.’ Thinking where, brings things – quite
literally – back down to earth. Back on earth, the material world emerges as
localized, manifesting and a manifestation of places with particular soils,
bedrock, plant and animal life, culture, structures, politics – the list goes on.
Early research on insurance was limited in its understanding of locality and place, emphasising its constitution through the economic, juridical,
political, and moral in the western world (e.g. Ewald, 1991). This is reflected
in understandings of economic and financial processes more generally: that
the scale and speed of such globalized and globalizing processes can create a sense of disconnection from ‘geographic entanglements in space and
place’ (Pike & Pollard 2010, p. 36).
More recently, place-based insurance research has included studies of
insurance-related phenomenon at various scales. For example, in developing regions (e.g. Grove 2012; Johnson 2013; Müller et al. 2017), nation states
(e.g. Booth & Tranter 2018; Langley 2006; Lehtonen 2017; Lobo-Guerrero
2011; O’Malley & Roberts 2013), and specific risk-affected areas (e.g. Booth
& Harwood 2016; Booth & Kendal 2020; Nance 2015). There is also research
that engages with the social dimensions of place in considering patterns
of socio-demographic change constituted through insurance and insurability (e.g. Booth & Kendal 2020; Johnson 2015). Of a more earthy nature,
there are investigations of agricultural insurance, or rather micro-insurance
schemes in which soil moisture and crop failure (amongst other factors) are
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157571-2
Earth
Earth is one of the classical elements – along with air, water, and fire – and
was once understood as foundational to the material world. For the Ancient
Greeks, earth spoke of matter and the terrestrial realm, and in other parts
of the world in different traditions was symbolized by, for example, the bull
and bird (Christian), lotus (Hindus), and house (Aztecs).
Modern science has provided an alternative configuration of the material
world – favouring chemical elements comprised of atoms and comprising
compounds, and negating place-based specificity. As gases, liquids, and
solids, these chemicals are understood as the physical basis of a material
world with universalized and universalizing properties.
Such universalism depends, as Law and Mol (2001, p. 609) observe,
on ‘never asking where-questions.’ Thinking where, brings things – quite
literally – back down to earth. Back on earth, the material world emerges as
localized, manifesting and a manifestation of places with particular soils,
bedrock, plant and animal life, culture, structures, politics – the list goes on.
Early research on insurance was limited in its understanding of locality and place, emphasising its constitution through the economic, juridical,
political, and moral in the western world (e.g. Ewald, 1991). This is reflected
in understandings of economic and financial processes more generally: that
the scale and speed of such globalized and globalizing processes can create a sense of disconnection from ‘geographic entanglements in space and
place’ (Pike & Pollard 2010, p. 36).
More recently, place-based insurance research has included studies of
insurance-related phenomenon at various scales. For example, in developing regions (e.g. Grove 2012; Johnson 2013; Müller et al. 2017), nation states
(e.g. Booth & Tranter 2018; Langley 2006; Lehtonen 2017; Lobo-Guerrero
2011; O’Malley & Roberts 2013), and specific risk-affected areas (e.g. Booth
& Harwood 2016; Booth & Kendal 2020; Nance 2015). There is also research
that engages with the social dimensions of place in considering patterns
of socio-demographic change constituted through insurance and insurability (e.g. Booth & Kendal 2020; Johnson 2015). Of a more earthy nature,
there are investigations of agricultural insurance, or rather micro-insurance
schemes in which soil moisture and crop failure (amongst other factors) are
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157571-2