Remaking the world in our own image: vulnerability, resilience and adaptation as historical discourses

Abstract

A warming climate and less predictable weather patterns, as well as an expanding urban infrastructure susceptible to geophysical hazards, make the world an increasingly dangerous place, even for those living in high-income countries. It is an opportune moment, therefore, from the vantage point of the second decade of the twenty-first century, to review the terms and concepts that have been employed regularly over the past 50 years to assess risk and to measure people's exposure to such events in the light of the wider geopolitical context. In particular, it is useful to examine 'vulnerability', 'resilience', and 'adaptation', the principal theoretical concepts that, from an historical perspective, have dominated disaster studies since the end of the Second World War. In addition, it is valuable to enquire as to the extent to which such discourses were ideological products of their time, which sought to explain societies and their environments from the stance of competing conceptual frameworks.

Keywords: Cold War; adaptation; discourses; resilience; vulnerability.