The attention toward examining the multiple impacts of disasters, and the
challenges they make visible for large metropolitan areas, is not recent. One of the
most famous historical examples is the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which had a
considerable influence on the emergence of scientific knowledge. The Great Lisbon
Earthquake, estimated at M.8.5 to 9.0 on the Richter scale, is credited with transforming the social, philosophical, and metaphysical paradigms of the time. Some
have gone so far as to state that this moment marked the beginning of the era of
European Enlightenment [3–9]. Discussing the importance of the Great Lisbon
Earthquake for continental philosophy, Gilles Deleuze argues that the event had an
intellectual and metaphysical impact equivalent to the one of Holocaust in the
twentieth century:
It is very curious that in the eighteenth century, it is the Lisbon earthquake which assumes
something like that, when across Europe people said: how is it still possible to maintain a
certain optimism founded on God? You see, after Auschwitz raised the question: how it is
possible to maintain a fading optimism about human reason. After the Lisbon earthquake,
how is it possible to maintain the fading belief of rationality in divine origin?
3 (My
translation, [10]).
In the twenty-first century, large size earthquakes such as the 2011 Tōhoku
earthquake still provoke shifts in our understanding of the world, forcing us to
question the modernist categories inherited from the Enlightenment.
Today, experts and lay people alike have also come to question the horizon of a
world without disaster, as well as the place that disasters can take in our everyday
lives [11–15]. Acknowledging that the balance between dangers and safety precautions is constantly renegotiated in contemporary societies [16–19], researchers
have also emphasized the role of expertise in the definition of such concepts [20,
21].
4 Moving away from positivist definitions, these authors have engaged with
larger questions posed by the complex relation between science, expertise and
society [23–26]. Experts and scientists have—indeed—been often criticized for
creating tensions within the democratic process [27] and not taking into account
3
My translation. In the original, it reads: “Il est très curieux que au dix-huitième siècle, ce soit le
tremblement de terre de Lisbonne qui assume quelque chose de cela, où toute l’Europe s'est dite:
comment est-il encore possible de maintenir un certain optimisme fondé sur Dieu? Vous voyez,
après Auschwitz retentit la question: comment est-il possible de maintenir le moindre optimisme
sur ce qu'est la raison humaine? Après le tremblement de terre de Lisbonne, comment est-il
possible de maintenir la moindre croyance en une rationalité d'origine divine?” [10].
4
Wynne critiques are aimed mostly toward the reproduction of dichotomies, “which are key part of
the problem of modernity: natural knowledge vs. ‘social’ knowledge, nature versus society, expert
versus lay knowledge. It’s also reflects—and reinforces—a more basic lack of recognition of the
cultural/hermeneutic of scientific knowledge itself, as well as of social interactions and cognitive
construction generally. […] I also thus problematize their uncritical conception of science and
knowledge per se. It is important to distinguish here between their recognition of the (in recent
years only) contested nature of scientific knowledge, and their uncritical reproduction of realist
concept of scientific knowledge. This realist epistemology also, I argue, gives rise to an unduly one
dimensional understanding of the underlying dynamics of the nature of ‘risk’ in the risk society”
[22].
Hybrid Disasters—Hybrid Knowledge
339
challenges they make visible for large metropolitan areas, is not recent. One of the
most famous historical examples is the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which had a
considerable influence on the emergence of scientific knowledge. The Great Lisbon
Earthquake, estimated at M.8.5 to 9.0 on the Richter scale, is credited with transforming the social, philosophical, and metaphysical paradigms of the time. Some
have gone so far as to state that this moment marked the beginning of the era of
European Enlightenment [3–9]. Discussing the importance of the Great Lisbon
Earthquake for continental philosophy, Gilles Deleuze argues that the event had an
intellectual and metaphysical impact equivalent to the one of Holocaust in the
twentieth century:
It is very curious that in the eighteenth century, it is the Lisbon earthquake which assumes
something like that, when across Europe people said: how is it still possible to maintain a
certain optimism founded on God? You see, after Auschwitz raised the question: how it is
possible to maintain a fading optimism about human reason. After the Lisbon earthquake,
how is it possible to maintain the fading belief of rationality in divine origin?
3 (My
translation, [10]).
In the twenty-first century, large size earthquakes such as the 2011 Tōhoku
earthquake still provoke shifts in our understanding of the world, forcing us to
question the modernist categories inherited from the Enlightenment.
Today, experts and lay people alike have also come to question the horizon of a
world without disaster, as well as the place that disasters can take in our everyday
lives [11–15]. Acknowledging that the balance between dangers and safety precautions is constantly renegotiated in contemporary societies [16–19], researchers
have also emphasized the role of expertise in the definition of such concepts [20,
21].
4 Moving away from positivist definitions, these authors have engaged with
larger questions posed by the complex relation between science, expertise and
society [23–26]. Experts and scientists have—indeed—been often criticized for
creating tensions within the democratic process [27] and not taking into account
3
My translation. In the original, it reads: “Il est très curieux que au dix-huitième siècle, ce soit le
tremblement de terre de Lisbonne qui assume quelque chose de cela, où toute l’Europe s'est dite:
comment est-il encore possible de maintenir un certain optimisme fondé sur Dieu? Vous voyez,
après Auschwitz retentit la question: comment est-il possible de maintenir le moindre optimisme
sur ce qu'est la raison humaine? Après le tremblement de terre de Lisbonne, comment est-il
possible de maintenir la moindre croyance en une rationalité d'origine divine?” [10].
4
Wynne critiques are aimed mostly toward the reproduction of dichotomies, “which are key part of
the problem of modernity: natural knowledge vs. ‘social’ knowledge, nature versus society, expert
versus lay knowledge. It’s also reflects—and reinforces—a more basic lack of recognition of the
cultural/hermeneutic of scientific knowledge itself, as well as of social interactions and cognitive
construction generally. […] I also thus problematize their uncritical conception of science and
knowledge per se. It is important to distinguish here between their recognition of the (in recent
years only) contested nature of scientific knowledge, and their uncritical reproduction of realist
concept of scientific knowledge. This realist epistemology also, I argue, gives rise to an unduly one
dimensional understanding of the underlying dynamics of the nature of ‘risk’ in the risk society”
[22].
Hybrid Disasters—Hybrid Knowledge
339