Risk & Disaster TIG

August 1, 2019

Thomas Hanson & Mei Johnson, Co-Chairs of the R&D TIG

The Risk and Disasters Topical Interest Group (R&D TIG) celebrates its 6^thanniversary as we prepare for the 80^thanniversary of the SFAA. Globally, R&D TIG members continue to engage in practice and research related to disaster and risk.  

R&D TIG members continue to be active in disseminating anthropological perspectives on risk and disaster. Katherine (Kate) Browne led the first risk and disaster field school focusing on Hurricane Harvey recovery in Rockport, TX. In May, Heather Lazrus and Julie Maldonado ran another successful Rising Voices workshop in Boulder Colorado. Several members presented at the annual Hazards workshop and related researchers meeting including Keely Maxwell and Laura Olson in the session “Cultures with an “S”: Encouraging Grassroots Preparedness and Mitigation” and Heather Kirkland’s session asking “Are We Speaking the Same Language? Breaking Down Silos in Disaster Research and Mitigation.” Roberto E. Barrios has a new interview regarding the history of Guatemalan disaster anthropology on Soundcloud. AJ Faas presented “Varieties of Vulnerability Thinking: A (Dis)Orientation to the Anthropology of Disasters,” at the Earthquake Science Center series for the USGS. Jennifer Trivedi recently accepted a faculty position at the University of Delaware in the Department of Anthropology and will be a core faculty member at the Disaster Research Center.

We are looking forward to forth-coming books from TIG members, including:  Disaster upon Disaster: Exploring the Gap between Knowledge, Policy and Practice (eds. Susanna M. Hoffman and Roberto E. Barrios), the second edition of The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective (eds. Anthony Oliver-Smith, Susanna M. Hoffman), Anthropology of Disasters in Latin America: State of the Art (ed. Virginia Araceli García Acosta), and The Haiti Exception: Anthropology and the Predicament of Narrative (eds. Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken, Kaiama L. Glover, Mark Schuller & Jhon Picard Byron). We are excited for the upcoming 2020 meetings and look forward to hearing from members in the coming months. 

We are happy to welcome anyone who is interested in risk and disasters to our membership. In addition to our sessions throughout SFAA annual meetings, we have a listserv you can join at http://bit.ly/JoinRDTIG, a Twitter account at https://twitter.com/RiskDisasterTIG, and a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1481802688698765/. We also maintain a directory of interested members and their specialties at https://bit.ly/RDTIGDirectory. The directory is intended to allow members to share their expertise and promote their work to the public or interested groups. If you are interested in being added, please contact Thomas Hanson at Thomas.hanson@colorado.edu.