serve (the residents) and—more important maybe—accepting to be challenged, Bay
Area experts have reframed their hypotheses and methods. Even more, building on
their own experiences as residents, they redefines the meaning of “normal,” which
for those living outside of major earthquake areas is often seen as a world without
hazards. Understanding that earthquake risk can overlap in situations that were
previously thought to be unconnected—like science and personal experience—they
framed the contours of a situated, acceptable, but still moving norm of what it
means to “live with earthquakes,” which never seems to reach a perfect and
definitive conclusion.
Instauring the risk of an earthquake is a mental exercise (who can really say that
he is prepared for a Tsunami or a large earthquake?) that allows experts to improve
their knowledge about residential practices in a space of risk. It also allows for the
residents’ capacities to define—specific and personal—knowledge of the danger
that they are dealing with. This never-ending work in progress is continually
renegotiated between residents and experts, moving the cursor of risk acceptability.
In this process, many things are taken into account and all of the micro as well as
macro events re-defined the spectrum of the earthquake risk and the condition of
resilience: when a disaster at the scale of the Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami, and
nuclear disaster of 2011 hit, but also when a building construction is planned, a
child is born, a new scientific discovery is unearthed, a new law is voted upon, or
the time comes to choose a new house. Experts and scientists of the SF Bay Area
maintain the memories of and knowledge about earthquakes, helping to ensure that
the rest of us never forget this invisible presence.
The co-construction of the risk is not the implementation of zero safety risk—for
really, how could that be?—but the renegotiation of what is an acceptable level of
threat that people can afford and agree upon, knowing that what can be done might
never be sufficient to cope with the extent of the damage and destruction. In many
ways, the incapacity to think of the danger frames the limits of this tightrope-walk
mental exercise. How, then, do experts and residents articulate the known and the
unknown, and how does that articulation add another layer to the construction of
earthquake risks? In this case, knowledge is supported by the capacity to imagine
the unthinkable, and to expect and accept the consequences of a large-scale
earthquake.
5 Conclusion
To make a place more resilient is to accept that the polysemy of the concept is both
a strength and a weakness. A weakness because resilience cannot be declared, it has
to be slowly co-constructed and instaured. A strength because it has the potential to
allow each actor of a catastrophe to define the concept in their own words. To
conclude I would argue that recognizing the hybridization of knowledge not only
changes the definition of science and knowledge, but also allows for the subjectivity
of experts, scientists, and residents and what should be taken into account, or listen
346
C. Mazel-Cabasse
Area experts have reframed their hypotheses and methods. Even more, building on
their own experiences as residents, they redefines the meaning of “normal,” which
for those living outside of major earthquake areas is often seen as a world without
hazards. Understanding that earthquake risk can overlap in situations that were
previously thought to be unconnected—like science and personal experience—they
framed the contours of a situated, acceptable, but still moving norm of what it
means to “live with earthquakes,” which never seems to reach a perfect and
definitive conclusion.
Instauring the risk of an earthquake is a mental exercise (who can really say that
he is prepared for a Tsunami or a large earthquake?) that allows experts to improve
their knowledge about residential practices in a space of risk. It also allows for the
residents’ capacities to define—specific and personal—knowledge of the danger
that they are dealing with. This never-ending work in progress is continually
renegotiated between residents and experts, moving the cursor of risk acceptability.
In this process, many things are taken into account and all of the micro as well as
macro events re-defined the spectrum of the earthquake risk and the condition of
resilience: when a disaster at the scale of the Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami, and
nuclear disaster of 2011 hit, but also when a building construction is planned, a
child is born, a new scientific discovery is unearthed, a new law is voted upon, or
the time comes to choose a new house. Experts and scientists of the SF Bay Area
maintain the memories of and knowledge about earthquakes, helping to ensure that
the rest of us never forget this invisible presence.
The co-construction of the risk is not the implementation of zero safety risk—for
really, how could that be?—but the renegotiation of what is an acceptable level of
threat that people can afford and agree upon, knowing that what can be done might
never be sufficient to cope with the extent of the damage and destruction. In many
ways, the incapacity to think of the danger frames the limits of this tightrope-walk
mental exercise. How, then, do experts and residents articulate the known and the
unknown, and how does that articulation add another layer to the construction of
earthquake risks? In this case, knowledge is supported by the capacity to imagine
the unthinkable, and to expect and accept the consequences of a large-scale
earthquake.
5 Conclusion
To make a place more resilient is to accept that the polysemy of the concept is both
a strength and a weakness. A weakness because resilience cannot be declared, it has
to be slowly co-constructed and instaured. A strength because it has the potential to
allow each actor of a catastrophe to define the concept in their own words. To
conclude I would argue that recognizing the hybridization of knowledge not only
changes the definition of science and knowledge, but also allows for the subjectivity
of experts, scientists, and residents and what should be taken into account, or listen
346
C. Mazel-Cabasse