P30311 Theory of Practice: Approaches and Understandings Nuhidayah Ab Razak | 13022652 – DEP 2013
Essay Question No. 7 Critically evaluate the link between poverty, vulnerability and disasters.
The aim of this essay is to present a critically formed verdict as to what extent poverty; vulnerability and disasters are linked based on evidence and related case studies, and to come to a resolution how we can benefit from the relationships. Schematically, most definitions explain that poverty, vulnerability and disaster are a result of the interaction of the elements and a disaster in theory cannot be present with the absence of impoverishment or vulnerability. The approach adopted by this essay is by looking at case studies taken from a wide range of sources which both agree with and contradict an argument and acknowledging pre-existing models of assessing cause and effects of disasters.
In developing an overarching concept, it is assumed disasters are directly proportionate to the vulnerability, which is highly dependent on the extent of impoverishment of peoples. Many would agree that the more impoverished a group of people are, ‘the more they are in a state of having no adequate resources and opportunities for earning a reasonable income, have many vulnerabilities to hazards’ (Bankoff et al, 2004, p148). Some translate this as poverty and vulnerability being reciprocal elements and are ‘social conditions that mutually reinforce each other’ (Bankoff et al, 2004, p146); others may put it simply as Cuny (1983) does, where he states: ‘It is the poor who suffer most in disasters… they are vulnerable in the most complete sense because they are poor’. Creating such relationships that are finite that return foreseeable impacts could generate policies whereby eradication of impoverishments and its effects of vulnerability alleviation go hand in hand. But it is important to understand that to adopt this approach would not mean augmenting one to affect the other, rather ‘poverty and vulnerability can be considered two sides of the same coin’ (Bankoff et al, 2004, p148); therefore, engaging vulnerability also necessitates addressing poverty. A great concern in linking poverty and vulnerability together is the risk of oversimplification to deduce that poverty and vulnerability are one of the same which ‘sustains stereotypes of the amorphous and differentiated mass of the poor’ (Chambers, 2006, p33). It is very different when we have observed that vulnerability and poverty themselves are ‘cores’ where there are themes that attached and linked to them. ‘Vulnerability has been associated with powerlessness, weakness, limited capacity and lack of resources’ (Bankoff, 2004, p145). As such, the impoverished are
P30311 Theory of Practice: Approaches and Understandings Nuhidayah Ab Razak | 13022652 – DEP 2013
associated with standards of monetary, capabilities and social embodiment. In the case of the landless squatters in Dhaka, populations were situated in the flood plain of a major river, Buriganga, tributary of an even bigger river the Meghna. In the 1988 floods, the pre-existing condition of malnourished children and extensive exposure to disease, combined with their poverty of landlessness and economic marginalisation, created a scene of ’unsafe conditions and enhanced vulnerability. This case shows how strongly poverty, vulnerability and disaster are associated through how ‘poor people’s economic standing limits their ability to mitigate the debilitating consequences of hazards’ (Watts, 1983). By and large, the impact of hazards on vulnerable people is a factor in producing more poor people. In some cases, non-poor communities may be as vulnerable and exposed to disasters, yet are able to recover better as they have the resources to engage in resilience. For example, the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami that centred in Tōhoku, saw quick recovery and reports base this success on the ‘nation’s physical assets’ (The Heritage Foundation, 2012). There are disadvantages of straightforward linkages; or better explained ‘in Heyer’s words, ‘what seems obvious is often wrong’ (Chambers, 2006, p37). Here, deprivation is defined in terms of a single continuum, with a fixed threshold and is measured in terms of monetary incomes or consumption. It is important to remember ‘deprivation and wellbeing, as poor rural people perceive them, have many dimensions which do not correspond with this measure (Jodha, 1988)’ (Chambers, 1991, p3). Modifications to correct these assumptions can be implemented through integration with local conditions, which requires distributed analysis, reassuring, authorising, and performing of concepts and priorities as defined by poor people themselves. Using the educated hypotheses, vulnerability reduction and development then can be focused on self-assessed areas of needs. The main themes being Powerlessness and Organisation as a counter-measure to ‘weakness’ and forming broad-based coalitions that ultimately give the organised poor an influential voice to protect themselves from hazardous events.
P30311 Theory of Practice: Approaches and Understandings Nuhidayah Ab Razak | 13022652 – DEP 2013
While it is risky to directly associate or consider poverty and vulnerability equivocally as prerequisites to disaster, we can start challenging the relationship. The effects of the poverty, vulnerability and hazards are not immediate. Poverty can contribute in form of a shear transformation where the strains produced by dynamic pressures in the broader structure of the cause and effects of disasters are laterally shifted in relation to each other. A known and effective method of diagrammatic means for explaining the relationship between natural events and the social processes that generate unsafe conditions is the Pressure and Release Model (PAR) model. This model demonstrates a more distant relationship between poverty and vulnerability and ‘how disasters occur when natural hazards affect vulnerable people’ (Wisner et al, 2002, p.50). This is further demonstrated through which poverty is a ‘root cause’ embedded in three sets of links of vulnerability. These connect the disaster to the processes that are situated at decreasing levels of specific points before coming to the point of impact. Poverty is a root causes as it interrelated in the set of widespread and general processes within a society and the world economy (Wisner et al, 2002, p52). This in turn creates the ‘distant’ condition that subjects them to changes centred in economic or political authority.
Existing models may not achieve appropriateness and progressive anti-poverty interventions that they aim for. For example capital was transferred in the form of loans and aid; an approach that has largely failed because of ‘the structural adjustment programmes are based on flawed development models’ (UNHCR, 1994). It can also be said that poverty and vulnerability may not be the salient factor when creating a solution and that the ‘current poverty status of a household may not necessarily be a good guide to the household’s vulnerability to being poor in the future’ (Chaudri, 2002, p52). In the case of the Talba barangay of the Philippines there is evidence of prevention of augmented disaster discounting their position of affluence. During the disaster of the 1995 Mount Pinatubo lahar overflow, we observed the following relationship dynamics; Irrespective of the economical state of the people, the disaster was averted due to the success of the people’s participation in saving the community. Taking measures of civil and social protection which ‘was the parallel warning system developed by the community that warned them on time to vacate the area, thus avoiding any loss of life’ (Bankoff et al, 2004, p157). These types of organisations in the Philippines, such as the Citizens’ Disaster Response Network (CDRN) are mainly organised by the poor themselves and would mean a greater alleviance of vulnerability without actually addressing the impoverishment itself.
P30311 Theory of Practice: Approaches and Understandings Nuhidayah Ab Razak | 13022652 – DEP 2013
Impoverishments can be subject to change before it impacts disaster. This happens in every situation due to the time dimension where ‘vulnerability can be measured in terms of the damage to future livelihoods, and not just as what happens to life and property at the time of the hazard event (Wisner et al, 2002, p12). Vulnerable groups also found it hardest to reconstruct their livelihoods following disaster, and this in turn makes them more vulnerable to the effects of subsequent hazard events. Disasters are equated in gauging the visible vulnerabilities, but on the contrary, there are groups may have ‘disguised’ vulnerabilities that manifest in different forms as to poverty-stricken peoples; one situation may be ‘their vulnerability is rooted in social processes and underlying causes which may ultimately be quite remote from the disaster event itself’ (Wisner et al, 2002, p50).
There will always be useful templates for evaluating the links between poverty, vulnerability and disasters. All these models will have different approaches and outputs but serves as valuable tools of broad appraisal. This template can only be used after acknowledging the organic linkages and that each situation has been characterised by the context-driven specificity, wants and capabilities of peoples that comprise of ‘concerted and sustained effort by all’ (Bankoff et al, 2004, p158). Through establishing the strengths of the links between poverty, vulnerabilities and disasters the most important factors are identified. The first, vulnerable people do not perceive themselves in a situation brought on by poverty but ‘‘weakness, problems and constraints’ showing that they distinct poverty and vulnerability as two separate entities’ (Bankoff et al, 2004, p150). In challenging the models appropriately, all we have to do is constantly let the poor express and engage themselves so that in physical and verbal reiteration they gain intelligence of their conditions and capabilities. Secondly, following Chambers’s (1991) argument that social sciences are ‘guarded by conservatism in concepts, values, methods and behaviour’, we find that a singularity is created to ease measurement by external observers. This is to account for a prosperity in their findings but do not account for ‘plural priorities of the rural poor and their many and varied strategies to obtain a living’ (Chambers, 1991, p2). Finally, majority of the impoverished have approaches which are complex and diverse that reflects the dynamics of the relationship between poverty, vulnerability and disasters. The most important outcome for this research is harnessing findings for the use of vulnerability reduction and creating resilience whether it is within the impoverished or the nonpoor. With the embedded realisation that vulnerability alleviation must start from the root causes of the poor themselves and consistent monitoring of dynamic pressures which is not always restricted, we can start building a structural framework for a holistic solution for the cycle.
P30311 Theory of Practice: Approaches and Understandings Nuhidayah Ab Razak | 13022652 – DEP 2013
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