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ABSTRACT
In this report, we reflect on the 2-day thinkshop ‘Figuring disasters: methodological speculations in exorbitant worlds’ held in Valparaíso, Chile. The thinkshop aimed at discussing the possibility of inventing new genres for the figuration, representation and visualisation of distributed and processual geoclimatic disruptions. For this report, we assembled a choral essay in which each one of the participants selected one object of our visit to Messana—an informal settlement in the outskirts of Valparaíso that was severely damaged by the 2017 fires—and knit around, from and with it a reflection on the thinkshop and its questions. The report is thus fractionary. We do not look for wholes, perhaps as disasters themselves problematise linear narratives. We prefer to be attentive to what each one of us inherited from Messana and to stage that sensibility in a multiplicity, though adventures into what disasters as methods can and should be.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Cardboard model of Messana used to contextualise our discussions during the two-day workshop.
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Notes on contributors
Manuel Tironi
Manuel Tironi is an Associate Professor at the Instituto de Sociología at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where he co-convenes the Critical Studies on the Anthropocene group (www.antropoceno.co). He is also principal investigator at the Center for Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Reduction (CIDIGEN) and at the Millennium Research Nucleus on Energy and Society (NUMIES). His latest projects have engaged with issues of geologic modes of knowing, toxicity, environmental justice and disaster cultures.
Gonzalo Bacigalupe
Gonzalo Bacigalupe, EdD, is Professor of Counselling Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is principal investigator of the Mediated Technologies for DRD at the Research Center for Integrated Disaster Risk Reduction (CIGIDEN ) and Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of Chile School of Engineering. His research focuses on the impact of emerging media adoption on families, the role of patient online communitie s and the use of emerging media to build community resilience for disaster risk reduction.
Scott Gabriel Knowles
Scott Gabriel Knowles is Professor of History and Head of the Department of History, Drexel University. His work focuses on risk and disaster, with particular interests in modern cities, technology and public policy. His most recent book is The Disaster Experts: Mastering Risk in Modern America (UPenn Press, 2011), and he is series co-editor of Critical Studies in Risk and Disaster (UPenn Press) launched in 2014.
Simon Dickinson
Simon Dickinson is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Plymouth, UK. His research examines the social and political activisms that arise in disaster landscapes, including how these activisms are shaped by experiments that unravel the nature and potential of the disaster’s ruptures.
Magdalena Gil
Magdalena Gil is Professor at the Engineering School of P. Universidad Católica de Chile. She is also a Researcher at the National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disasters Management (CIGIDEN). She has a PhD in Sociology and has published in various topics related to disaster risk science. Currently, she coordinates the creation of a National Institute of R&D+i for Natural Disaster Resilience (ITReND) in Chile.
Sarah Kelly
Sarah Kelly is a Postdoctoral Researcher at CIGIDEN, Centro de Investigación para la Gestión Integrada de Riesgo de Desastres at the Universidad Católica de Chile, and an Associate Researcher at the Centro Transdisciplinario de Estudios Ambientales at the Universidad Austral de Chile. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Arizona. Her research addresses the intersection of hydropower development, Indigenous rights recognition, knowledge politics and disaster risk.
Jason Ludwig
Jason Ludwig is an independent researcher based in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BA in History and an MS in Science, Technology and Society from Drexel University.
Jarah Moesch
Jarah Moesch is Lecturer in Design Cultures & Creativity at the University of Maryland. Moesch has a Ph.D. in American Studies from University of Maryland and an MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College. Moesch’s research focuses on how knowledge is produced, distributed, acquired and managed within ‘industrial complexe s’, the building of new models for justice and the designing of new worlds.
Francisco Molina
Francisco Molina is a postdoctoral researcher at CIGIDEN (Research Centre for Integrated Disaster Risk Management). He has a Ph.D. in Human Geography at King’s College, London, and his research interests are related to environmental conflict s, water, climate change and conservation and local knowledge within natural disasters.
Karla Palma
Karla Palma is Assistant Professor at the Universidad de Chile. Previously, she worked as a journalist and activist in issues related to communication and environmental issues in Chile. She received her Ph.D. in Communications and Media at the Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois, at Urbana Champaign in 2015.
Ayesha Siddiqi
Ayesha Siddiqi is Lecturer in Human Geography. Her research focuses on climatic disasters and their interaction with politics, security and development. With an interdisciplinary background, her core research interests are around the study of political space in the aftermath of large -scale climatic disasters.
Johannes Waldmueller
Johannes Waldmueller is Research Professor of Political Science and International Relations. He has a PhD in Sociology and Anthropology of Development (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva).