Epicentre to Aftermath

Analyses the impact of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes and the need to understand disasters in their cultural and political context.

Insisting on the importance of fine-grained cultural, political, and historical context, this book dramatically expands the field of knowledge relevant to understanding disasters, their outcomes and appropriate interventions. In so doing, it shows that disaster aftermaths are never inevitable but are the outcomes of situated human agency.Epicentre to Aftermath makes both empirical and conceptual contributions to the growing body of disaster studies literature by providing an analysis of a disaster aftermath that is steeped in the political and cultural complexities of its social and historical context. Drawing together scholars from a range of disciplines, the book highlights the political, historical, cultural, artistic, emotional, temporal, embodied and material dynamics at play in the earthquake aftermath. Crucially, it shows that the experience and meaning of a disaster are not given or inevitable, but are the outcome of situated human agency. The book suggests a whole new epistemology of disaster consequences and their meanings, and dramatically expands the field of knowledge relevant to understanding disasters and their outcomes.