Paper short abstract:

Concurrent disasters have led to a world in crisis. The upheavals have brought questions for anthropology: the study of sequestration not groups; the dichotomy of probability and possibility; how we research now; deduction induction; the rise of applied; cultural change; and displacement.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2020 the world has been engulfed a profound global disaster: the COVID-19 pandemic. It has affected people of every ilk in every nation. At the same time, people everywhere are dealing with climate change slowly creeping across the globe. It has brought rising waters, heat, desertification, crop loss, insects and often massive storms. Simultaneously, a number of other disasters have ensued landing the world with a true conundrum of ills. The resulting enigma for the study of anthropology and of disasters is equally complex. Anthropology has always dealt with groups, but now must investigate human sequestration. Yet concurrently, it must chronicle communities together adapting to habitat changes. All told, the situation leads to a reexamination of a number of tenets in anthropology and particularly in the field of disaster studies: the all hazard approach to risk; the dichotomy between possibility and probability; the study of isolation in contrast to groups; the unfolding new play within the four levels of environment and human communities; the problem of burgeoning displacement and the socio-cultural issues within behind it; the resurgence of the old question of socio-cultural change with the new drivers propelling it; the rise of the applied focus yet the furthering separation between knowledge, policy and practice; the question of how anthropology research can now be conducted and a revisitation of the scientific matter of induction versus deduction.

Paper short abstract:

This proposal will show how the Covid-19 Pandemic has compounded the effect of the earthquakes in central Italy (2016-2017), an area already characterised by uncertainty, suspension and temporariness, revealing how 'crisis' and 'emergency' are increasingly everyday conditions rather than exceptions.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, 'crisis' and 'emergency' have become key concepts to define the experiences and configurations that characterise the contemporary era, assuming particular importance in contexts affected by disasters. In Italy, repeatedly hit by different catastrophes, these terms are essential in the signification of such events.

As underlined by the anthropology of disasters, the catastrophe's outset has significant repercussions not only on an economic, social and political level but also on a historical and existential one. However, what happens when one disaster is compounded by another? What effects do the concatenation and interrelationship of catastrophic events have on the lives of the people involved? How do they influence the institutional management of this 'double disaster'?

Starting from research conducted between 2018 and 2022 through qualitative methods, including ethnography - the use of which, unfortunately, was compromised by restrictions during the lockdowns - I will show the effects that the spread of the Covid-19 Pandemic has had on the population affected by the earthquakes that struck central Italy between 2016-2017, mainly Marche region.

Specifically, I propose to examine the interrelationships between the earthquake and the pandemic emergencies, their effects on the relocation and the reconstruction processes, how people reconfigured their sense of location and belonging, and how they rethink their interpersonal relationships.

In short, I will show how the Pandemic has compounded the situation of the earthquake-affected population, already characterised by uncertainty, suspension and temporariness, revealing how 'crisis' and 'emergency' are more and more everyday conditions rather than exceptions.

Paper short abstract:

Transhumant beekeeping in Spain is threatened by the crises of climate change, fuel prices and parasite Varroa destructor. This paper discusses how the practice of transhumance endows beekeepers with remarkable resilience and how the current crises have nevertheless ushered in new ways of beekeeping

Paper long abstract:

Beekeeping in Extremadura, Spain differs from beekeeping in other parts of Europe by its sheer industrial scale and the practice of transhumance. Like many rural livelihoods around the world, transhumant beekeeping in Spain is being threatened by the effects climate change and the rising cost of fuel, but they are also dealing with the decades-long perpetual crisis of invasive parasitic mite Varroa destructor.

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a small rural village of Fuenlabrada de los Montes in Extremadura, home to one of the largest communities of beekeepers in Europe. Although the village is small, it functions as a central hub in a vast network of beehive sites located all around South-Western Spain. This paper examines how the beekeepers of Fuenlabrada have responded to the three compounding crises of climate, economy and Varroa by changing the way they practice transhumance, while simultaneously demonstrating how their traditional way of practicing of transhumance has endowed these beekeepers with remarkable resilience to withstand these crises, at least thus far. Curiously, while many of the changes coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic itself has had minimal effect on the professional lives of Extremaduran beekeepers. Nevertheless, the pandemic has served as a parallel deathly backdrop to the ever-worsening droughts and Varroa outbreaks that have more than decimated Extremaduran beehives annually since 2018. Can the traditional way of industrial-scale transhumant beekeeping survive, or are these recent crises the final straw that ushers in new kind of beekeeping in Extremadura

Paper short abstract:

On-going research on Japan's 2011 'Triple Disaster' suggests that anthropologists should analytically story the long-term, radical effects on interlocutors and their communities of disaster across time which, with its always in-coming challenges, might otherwise obscure or deny their experiences.

Paper long abstract:

Japan’s ‘Triple Disaster’ lives in its survivors in Tohoku, northeast Japan, complicating the region’s status in Japanese consciousness as a backwater, rich in folklore and ‘tradition’, a distant land of volcanoes, poor soil, harsh winters; of steeply-valleyed coastal communities where 122,312 people died on 11 March 2011. I argue for ethnographic attention to long-term effects, on-going for those radically affected by disaster – including 228,863 displaced – that accounts for the complications of history itself – political exigencies, Olympic Games, new pandemics – that might otherwise serve to obscure or deny the personal experiences of those grossly affected by an extreme event.

My interlocutors experienced two prongs of the ‘triple disaster’ – earthquake and the resultant tsunami – but indirectly the demise of Fukushima’s nuclear plant, 60 miles to the south. Without denying that Fukushima’s on-going meltdown requires continuous study, notably Japan’s March 2011 is increasingly construed as the ‘Fukushima disaster’. Thus silenced in general Japanese discourse, for those elsewhere in Tohoku, who only faced the watery death of loved ones, the destruction of homes, whole communities and livelihoods, the risks of further emotional displacement are real, with the quality of personal and communal memories denied, including the possible loss of tangible support. The experience and even, perhaps, local acceptance of that process would align, furthermore, with a trope associated with Tohoku as always-already lost in Japanese national consciousness.

Instead, anthropologists should work to story the radical effects of disaster including its articulation across time with other, always-in-coming challenges.

Paper short abstract:

The Beirut blast of 4 August 2020 brought accounts of acute mental suffering of the Lebanese to the global stage. This paper argues for a deeper dive into compounding economic, political, and public health-related crises to better understand the mental health needs of post-disaster Lebanon.

Paper long abstract:

Following the 4 August 2020 Beirut blast, humanitarian organizations attempted to provide mental healthcare in response to acute disaster. Relying on a linear and causal understanding that is inherent to Western paradigms of trauma, this understanding of the Lebanese reaction to disaster was concerningly reductive, ignoring the compounding crises that were devastating Lebanon before the blast and were only exacerbated after: a traumatizing civil war in the 1970s-1980s with lingering sociopolitical chaos, a failed revolution and continuing economic decline since 2019, and a crippling of Lebanon’s healthcare system only exacerbated by COVID-19.

In this paper, I propose a case study of compounding crises: Lebanon as it exists in a post-civil war, post-explosion, and peri-pandemic state of disaster. In particular, working within the context of mental health-related humanitarian efforts, I argue for a critical exploration of how compounding crises as experienced by our interlocutors complicate anthropological inquiry and, in this case, psychiatric care that aims to address widespread mental unwellness.

Using an interview-based approach, I focus on the experience of healthcare providers from two Beirut hospitals that serve as “microcosms” of the nation. Through their stories, I aim to contextualize the blast and its psychosocial effects within a complex "necropolitical" history of Lebanon in which past and present ruptures interweave. By highlighting the diverse ways that my interlocutors have addressed their own mental unwellness as caused by multiple factors instead of one, I conclude by arguing for an anthropologically inspired model to holistic, socially informed psychiatric care.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the challenges faced by a Sikh humanitarian group operating into India during the compound crises of political protest and COVID-19. What, it asks, are the stakes of such diasporic work in a contemporary India marked by increasing levels of religious and sectarian intolerance?

Paper long abstract:

In autumn 2020, farmers began what would become a year-long protest against the Hindu-nationalist government’s plans to open the Indian agri-food market to national and international competition. The UK-based Sikh organisation Khalsa Aid initiated support for the protesting farmers, an action for which they were labelled ‘anti-national’ and ‘secessionist’ by multiple media organisations, eventually receiving a summons from the Indian National Investigation Agency. As this investigation was ongoing, a second wave of coronavirus infections overwhelmed hospitals and left many without access to medical care. To bridge the gaps left by government and private healthcare provision, Khalsa Aid continued working, setting up what became known as ‘oxygen langars’, sites that provided oxygen canisters or concentrators free of charge. Utilising a method demanded by the pandemic moment – media analysis (both traditional newspapers and social media) – this paper investigates the challenges and opportunities of such diasporic humanitarian work in contemporary India, focussing on Khalsa Aid and the second wave of COVID-19 infections. This was a moment in which the power of the state to protect its citizens was called into question. Unlike prior anthropological work on religious humanitarian work in India which emphasises its function as an enactment of ‘national integration’ (Copeman 2009), this paper focuses not on state building but anxiety about its status. I argue that the compound nature of these crises and the prominent action of Sikh organisations elicited competing discourses about the validity of a state that has cast itself in opposition to minority groups.

Paper short abstract:

Disabled peoples' experiences of extreme weather intersect with their experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic and rising economic instability in ways that challenge conventional understandings of compounded crises and prompt disruption of dominant discourses of human vulnerability.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on fieldwork from Scotland, this paper explores how experiences of extreme weather amongst people with disabilities and chronic medical conditions have intersected with their experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic, rising economic and energy instability, heightened calls for climate action, and increasing disability activism to challenge conventional understandings of what constitutes a ‘compounding crisis’ and prompt the disruption and diversification of discourses of human vulnerability and social justice/injustice. In Scotland, increasing hardship has resulted in increasing society-wide concern for human suffering. But, while on one hand, this has led to changing ideas of ‘sympathy’ and ‘deservedness’ within wider public discourses of social justice and injustice, it also has resulted in the continued stereotyping of marginalised groups within a new, emerging dominant discourse of vulnerability, which although aiming to incorporate diversity, actually downplays the full extent of the diversities and complexities associated with the different lived realities of confronting compounding challenges. However, as this paper shows, exploration of the lived experiences of people with disabilities in responding to flooding amidst the pandemic not only helps challenge dominant society-wide conceptualisations of compounding crises as representing a series of discrete events, but shows how increased disability activism within a context characterised by compounding challenges is helping to catalyse a deeper cultural shift that involves the reframing of new emerging discourses of vulnerability and social justice/injustice in ways that are more fully reflective of human agency and which are more appreciative of the diversities and complexities of what experiencing a compounding crisis may entail.