My research is concerned with natural disasters as a consequence of long-term interaction between “nature” and “culture” in an area. As an anthropologist, I have been conducting my field research in Istanbul, Turkey, where earthquake risk is a public concern recently, focusing on the activities of local people, municipalities, and academics and the relationships among them. As a member of this G-COE project, I am working with the issue of sustainability in the context of natural disasters, paying attention to local people’s awareness of the risk of disasters and their knowledge concerning disasters, as shaped through everyday life.
My research in detail
Natural disasters constitute one of the most serious risks to a society’s sustainability. Statistical facts have revealed that the number and damage of natural disasters are increasing especially in developing countries, and that the simple application of new technology cannot be a solution. This indicates the importance of a focus on the socio-cultural aspects of a natural disaster. In this context I have been studying natural disasters in Istanbul, Turkey. As is well known, Turkey is prone to earthquakes, and Istanbul, the biggest city in the country with a population of more than ten million, is located on the western part of an active fault line. This North Anatolian Fault Line is said to have generated several earthquakes from east to west sequentially. After a severe earthquake (called the Marmara Earthquake) occurred just east of Istanbul in 1999, it has become a public concern to alleviate the damages of future earthquakes.
Although people’s disaster awareness was raised, Istanbul’s disaster vulnerability has not been reduced easily. Based on my field research, I have illustrated the process of the construction of disaster vulnerability of the city as a historical entanglement of the rapid increase of the urban population, the transformation of national policies related with natural hazards and housing, and the progress of Turkish earth science. In addition to this, I have reported the activities of multiple actors such as local volunteer teams, municipalities, and NGOs, and academics, and the difficulties they are confronted with.
In this G-COE program, I advance my research on natural disaster in the broader framework of Sustainable Humanosphere in collaboration with other members with different academic backgrounds, considering these following intertwined issues. The first point is the relationship between people’s risk awareness and their living environment. People living in the neighborhoods of Istanbul where I have been conducting my field research have lived through a dynamic transition of living environment in their life, that results from the change of network of constructors, construction methods, legal regulations related with housing, and the form of the family. I plan to trace the transformation and examine its effect on people’s risk awareness and social relationships.
The second topic is knowledge communicated among local people. In disaster studies, the notion of “disaster culture”— a system of local and/or traditional knowledge, technologies, practices and institutions to mitigate the damage of disasters— has been under heated discussion recently. I intend to reexamine this idea through research on the narratives of survivors of the Marmara earthquake.
Thirdly, I plan to scrutinize the concept of risk and security. Natural disasters are generally categorized as a risk with low probability and high consequence. Therefore, to take measures against natural disasters in advance can become a point of contention, and in some cases, yet another disaster to some stakeholders. I examine schemes that contribute to a society’s sustainability by shedding light on the administrative mechanisms and frictions related to social risk.