Pakistan floods
Conference

Living a Natural Disaster

Sandrine
Revet

Research Fellow, Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI), Sciences Po

Sandrine Revet works on political cultural and social dynamics of natural disasters. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology (2006) from the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l’Amérique latine, focusing on Venezuelian 1999's floods (Anthropologie d’une catastrophe, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2007). She joined CERI in 2009.
In 2010, she participated in a MSF-Crash conference entitled "Living a natural disaster". She is a member of the editorial boards of Critique internationale, Questions de recherche, Cahiers des Amériques latines, Papeles del CEIC (Universidad del Pais Vasco, Bilbao) and Disaster Prevention and Management. Co-founder of the Association pour la recherche sur les catastrophes et les risques en anthropologie (ARCRA).

The study of natural disasters from an anthropological viewpoint reveal a reality that differs markedly from the clichés we see in the media. This reality is uncovered in the work by Sandrine Revet on the mudslides that destroyed the cost of Venezuela in December 1999. By looking at this event in the local context, she describes how survival, aid and reconstruction activities are organised.

Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Historical background
3. Ethnography of a disaster
4. Reconstruction
5. Ethnography of private international organisations
6. With hindsight, how do you view your work as head of mission?
7. Have new social categories emerged after the disaster?
8. Difference between figures; certainty or estimate?
9. Emergency burials : in which conditions?
10. Are statistics about casualties systematically inflated?
11. Statistics as a lever for international mobilisation and fundraising?
12. Are there any efficient prevention programmes?

To cite this content :
Sandrine Revet, “Living a Natural Disaster”, 3 novembre 2010, URL : https://msf-crash.org/en/conferences-debates/living-natural-disaster

If you want to criticize or develop this content, you can find us on twitter or directly on our site.

Contribute

Past events

conv yves clot Conference

Another approach to well-being at work

12/09/2021 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PM Yves Clot Jean-Yves Bonnefond

The members of the Crash were very happy to welcome you all to this new conference-debate with occupational psychologists Yves Clot and Jean-Yves Bonnefond, two of the authors of “Le prix du travail bien fait – La coopération conflictuelle dans les organisations” (Paris, La Découverte, 2021 ; co-written with Antoine Bonnemain and Mylène Zittoun).

Read more
conf violences extrêmes msf Conference

Book launch event - Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie

11/17/2021 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PM Jean-Hervé Bradol

We were very happy to welcome two authors of the book: sociologist (CNRS) and Crash scientific committee member Claudine Vidal, and Jean-Hervé Bradol, doctor, former President of the French section of MSF and current director studies at the Crash, for the launching event of the newly-published book “Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie” (Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris 2021). The event was hosted by Rony Brauman.

Read more
conf karen Conference

Asylum and exile. A history of the distinction between migrants / refugees

04/12/2021 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PM Karen Akoka

On April 12 2021 we had the great pleasure of hosting a virtual CRASH conference with political scientist and sociologist Karen Akoka, fresh from her publication in November of “Asylum and Exile. A History of the Refugee/Migrant Distinction" (La Découverte, 2020). The author described and analyzed the trajectory of OFPRA, the French institution founded in 1952 and responsible for granting refugee status; she provided an insight into how the history of the distinction between migrants and refugees was established in France.

Read more
conf pierre chirac Conference

Clinical trials, between science and financial and academic interests

10/08/2020 - 06:00 PM 08:00 PM Pierre Chirac

Pierre Chirac, pharmacist and editor of the journal Prescrire, presented his analysis of the pharmaceutical industry's influence strategies and the special interests of university hospital researchers, their consequences on the reliability of drug information and the means now required to rectify a harmful situation.

Read more
conf joel glasman Conference

The quantification of needs

12/10/2020 - 06:00 PM 08:00 PM Joël Glasman

Combining historical research and ethnographic investigations, the Africanist historian Joël Glasman plunges us into the factory of the homo humanitarianus, the average individual, on the basis of which "needs" and aid projects today are assessed. This conversation took place on December 10th 2020, during a conference-debate at Crash.

Read more
conf jf bayart Conference

Territories: the illusion of identity

12/16/2019 - 06:00 PM 08:00 PM Jean-François Bayart

Conference-debate on Monday 16 December 2019, 6-8pm in the 1st floor meeting room at MSF, 14-34 avenue Jean Jaurès 75019 Paris. Streaming and simultaneous translation into English available.

Can we talk about the specificities of the Middle East, Iran or the Mediterranean without reducing these territories to a culture or religion? On December 16, 2019, the CRASH team organised a conference-debate with Jean-François Bayart, a French political scientist who has devoted his work to the sociology of the State and identity illusions.

Read more