Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People

* Major disasters increased over 93 per cent during the 1990s, reaching 712 in 2001
* Up to 340 million people are affected by disasters every year
* 'Vulnerability' is the key to understanding the causes, impacts and ways to mitigate disasters

In this penetrating analysis, the authors critically examine "vulnerability" as a concept that is vital to the way we understand the impact and magnitude of disasters. This book is a counterbalance to technocratic approaches that limit themselves to simply looking at natural phenomena. Through the notion of vulnerability, the authors stress the importance of social processes and human-environmental interactions as causal agents in the making of disasters. They critically examine what renders communities unsafe, a condition they argue that depends primarily on the relative position of advantage or disadvantage that a particular group occupies within a society's social order. Bolstering their theoretical analysis with case studies drawn from Asia, Africa and Latin America, the authors also look at vulnerability in terms of its relationship to development and through its impact on policy and peoples' lives.

Greg Bankoff is Seior Lecturer at the School of Asian Studies, University of Aukland, and Research Fellow of Disaster Studies at Wageningen University.

Georg Frerks is Professor of Disaster Studies at Wageningen University.

Dorothea Hilhorst is Lecturer of Disaster Studies at Wageningen University.