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Livelihood Vulnerability in Cities: Interrogating the Intersections of Culture, Disaster Risk and Power
Livelihood Vulnerability in Cities: Interrogating the Intersections of Culture, Disaster Risk and Power
Wednesday, 13 July 2016: 09:00-10:30
Location: Hörsaal 4C G (Neues Institutsgebäude (NIG))
RC46 Clinical Sociology (host committee) Language: English
Coastal cities have a high exposure to climate-related hazards such as heavy to extreme precipitation, sea-level rise, cyclones and storms. In Asia, for example, 18 percent of the urban population live in low coastal elevation zone (LECZ) and face disaster risk.
This session examines the role of culture in shaping risk, vulnerability, adaptation and resilience to natural hazards and climate change, and in turn, in being shaped by these forces. In particular, it will examine the cultural drivers (e.g., gender roles, beliefs/values and social capital) of livelihood vulnerability, adaptation and resilience to hazards and climate change.
More specifically: How do cultural norms/values regarding gender roles, social capital and power among vulnerable populations shape their constructions of livelihood vulnerability, adaptation and resilience within the context of climate/disaster risk? In turn, how do women’s livelihood groups mobilize their livelihood resilience strategies to carve a slice of the local government resources for their communities and families? And how are their livelihood mobilization strategies being mobilized by gatekeepers/powerbrokers at the institutional spaces of their local governments, in the process, transforming the community’s risk reduction initiatives?
In answering these questions, the session hopes to build an empirical basis for re-examining as well building new ways of framing the intersections of culture, risk and power among vulnerable communities in hazard-/disaster-prone areas.
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