metaphysical parameters that influence the conditions—and quality—of a particular
response to a specific catastrophe.
In this chapter, I would like to discuss the potential and limits of resilience as an
operative concept. Building on the idea that knowledge about disaster to come is
necessarily incomplete, I will first give an overview of the emergence of the notion
of resilience in the different fields of social science. Then, building on the field
research conducted in the Bay Area of San Francisco between 2009 and 2013, I will
show how experts and scientists of the Bay Area have learnt to use their empirical
experience the earthquake risk and combine it with state of the art science production, creating de facto a corpus of knowledge that I will describe as “hybridized.”
2 A Brief Overview
Risk and disaster are hard to conceptualize and apprehend. As Oliver-Smith [1]
writes:
Disasters are both socially constructed and experienced differently by different groups and
individuals, generating multiple interpretations of an event process. A single disaster can
fragment into different and conflicting sets of circumstances and interpretations according
to the experience and identity of those affected. Disasters force researchers to confront the
many and shifting faces of socially imagined realities. Disasters disclose in their unfolding
the linkages and interpenetrations of natural forces or agents (pp. 25–26).
Recent major disasters, including a great number of earthquakes, have not only
deeply transformed the actual space they impacted but also the world around them.
1
They forced us to face the human capacity to deal with, and to respond to, such
events. As French geographer Michel Lussault [2] observed in the aftermath of the
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when engaged with destructive events, thinking
becomes complicated by the influx of overwhelming information that seems
incompatible with science’s need for impartiality and objectivity. He writes:
Soon, emotion facing what appeared as incomparable tragedies became global. […] The
extension at the scale of the globe of the rumors of the disaster came together with the
diffusion of a spectacular dramaturgy associating narratives, pictures of professional and
amateurs, more or less scientific description[s] of the tsunami and its consequences,
science fiction discourses on the conceivable future replicas of such phenomena.
2
(My translation, [2])
1
Among others, they include Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Haiti Earthquake in 2008, and the
Christchurch Earthquake.
2
My translation. In the original: “Rapidement, l’émotion face a ce qui apparut comme une tragédie
incomparable devint mondiale (…) La dilatation à l’échelle du globe et l’écho de la catastrophe
s’accompagna de la diffusion d’une dramaturgie spectaculaire, associant des récits, des images de
professionnels et d’amateurs, des descriptions plus ou moins scientifiques du tsunami et de ses
conséquences, des discours d’anticipation sur les future répliques envisageables d’un tel
phénomène” [2].
338
C. Mazel-Cabasse
response to a specific catastrophe.
In this chapter, I would like to discuss the potential and limits of resilience as an
operative concept. Building on the idea that knowledge about disaster to come is
necessarily incomplete, I will first give an overview of the emergence of the notion
of resilience in the different fields of social science. Then, building on the field
research conducted in the Bay Area of San Francisco between 2009 and 2013, I will
show how experts and scientists of the Bay Area have learnt to use their empirical
experience the earthquake risk and combine it with state of the art science production, creating de facto a corpus of knowledge that I will describe as “hybridized.”
2 A Brief Overview
Risk and disaster are hard to conceptualize and apprehend. As Oliver-Smith [1]
writes:
Disasters are both socially constructed and experienced differently by different groups and
individuals, generating multiple interpretations of an event process. A single disaster can
fragment into different and conflicting sets of circumstances and interpretations according
to the experience and identity of those affected. Disasters force researchers to confront the
many and shifting faces of socially imagined realities. Disasters disclose in their unfolding
the linkages and interpenetrations of natural forces or agents (pp. 25–26).
Recent major disasters, including a great number of earthquakes, have not only
deeply transformed the actual space they impacted but also the world around them.
1
They forced us to face the human capacity to deal with, and to respond to, such
events. As French geographer Michel Lussault [2] observed in the aftermath of the
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when engaged with destructive events, thinking
becomes complicated by the influx of overwhelming information that seems
incompatible with science’s need for impartiality and objectivity. He writes:
Soon, emotion facing what appeared as incomparable tragedies became global. […] The
extension at the scale of the globe of the rumors of the disaster came together with the
diffusion of a spectacular dramaturgy associating narratives, pictures of professional and
amateurs, more or less scientific description[s] of the tsunami and its consequences,
science fiction discourses on the conceivable future replicas of such phenomena.
2
(My translation, [2])
1
Among others, they include Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Haiti Earthquake in 2008, and the
Christchurch Earthquake.
2
My translation. In the original: “Rapidement, l’émotion face a ce qui apparut comme une tragédie
incomparable devint mondiale (…) La dilatation à l’échelle du globe et l’écho de la catastrophe
s’accompagna de la diffusion d’une dramaturgie spectaculaire, associant des récits, des images de
professionnels et d’amateurs, des descriptions plus ou moins scientifiques du tsunami et de ses
conséquences, des discours d’anticipation sur les future répliques envisageables d’un tel
phénomène” [2].
338
C. Mazel-Cabasse