Disaster and Culture

WITHIN THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL SCIENCES, the concept of “tradition” and the manifold controversies it has been embedded in play a significant role in the cultural analysis of continuity and change of social orders. Therefore, tradition has to be understood as a key concept of understanding disasters as decisive points of negotiating social order in the face of existential threat. The relationship between tradition and disaster becomes tangible in the case of the Tyrolian community of Galtür, which suffers from avalanche catastrophes on a regular basis and was hit by a devastating avalanche in February 1999. The case of Galtür demonstrates how an Alpine community's experience of constant exposure to disaster and its ability to cope with catastrophes are not simply unquestioned facts or historical actuality. Rather, tradition informs the perception of bygone avalanches as well as the management of present-day or future disasters. Thus the historical perspective on avalanches itself serves the community as a coping strategy.

From this perspective, the concept of “tradition” helps to illuminate how social order is renegotiated or overthrown in the face of disaster, and makes accessible the development of strategies of coping with, communicating, or remembering a crisis or threat. Alpine communities such as Galtür, being constantly exposed to avalanches, have established specific local protocols of dealing with catastrophes: these strategies can be considered “disaster traditions.” These traditions serve as a stabilizing factor in the face of destabilizing events; they are a means to integrate the extraordinary into the ordinary of daily routine, and thus determine what is perceived as disaster, whether an event is considered a disaster or not. These traditions thus help to understand avalanches as an interaction of a possible threat and its actualization. In reference to vulnerability studies, disasters are then never mere natural phenomena, but rather always embedded in a sociocultural context, evolving in a hybrid space. Disaster traditions disclose and shape this very space. Based on Foucauldian discourse theory and his notion of dispositif (apparatus), traditions can be understood as sets of discourses and practices. The concept of “tradition” must be explored critically to be understood as a self-reflexive practice of knowledge, which serves as the interface of continuity and change of sociocultural orders. I will elaborate on these ideas by means of three examples that will explore the scope and benefits of the concept of “disaster tradition.”