Victims of Severe
Environmental Assault
Prof. Kieran Graham Mundy
Ph.D.
Victims of Severe Environmental
Assault
A PRE-ASSAULT PERSPECTIVE
Severe Environmental Assault (SEA)
What is it?
The Victimizing Force (V
f)
A Universal Concept
The Victimizing Habitus & Operationalizing V
f
A new perspective
Topic 1
Topic 2
Topic 3
Topic 4
Awareness of the V
f
Imagined SEA, pre-SEA (short/long term awareness, actualized SEA)
Topic 5
Differential Victimization in aftermath of SEA
A new perspective
Issues to consider
Global environmental change, climate
change,
• EV is about understanding and
mitigating suffering and pain of all sentient life due to environmental degradation caused by the human species.
• Is about understanding and mitigating
human suffering and pain because of global over-population, mostly in high risk geographical areas of the planet.
• Is a human centered, not socially or
legally constructed perspective.
• It’s focus is the victim, not the type
and process of the ”natural disaster” or environmental assault.
• It is based on the premise that any
short term “natural disaster” (a
Tsunami) and any long term “natural disaster” (e.g., climate change) must have some degree of human input
Environmental Victimology:
Beyond the boundaries of the CJS?
June rains turn the land near the village of Sedeguge green, but too late. An uncle bears
•Global Environmental Change is a potential deadly catastrophe in slow motion, a series of critical natural events over time, and imperceptible to most of
The biosphere defines the limits of life on the planet
The biosphere can also be considered as a victim of Man’s
misunderstanding of its purpose and, at times, deliberate destruction.
Line plot of global
mean land-ocean
temperature index,
1880 to present,
with the base
period 1951-1980.
NASA Goddard Institute For Space Studies, July 11, 2011
All
short term (e.g.
tsunami) & long term
—
disasters
(e.g.,
climate change) have
some degree of
human input
.
Climate change can
also be considered
as “self-harm.”
Severe Environmental
Assault
Humans are predisposed to survive in hostile physical environments that have only incidentally supported sentient life over geological time.
In this sense, the ‘natural’ movement of tectonic plates over 100s of millions of years has no meaning unless that meaning is imposed by some sentient life-form.
Surging tsunamis, massive
earthquakes, raging firestorms,
typhoons, and droughts merely tear at the fabric of an inanimate Earth—
unless human life is present to observe, describe, and suffer their impact.
While humans can influence the frequency and intensity of some of these natural events, it is axiomatic that when there is no sentient life, there is no threat to the survival of that life.
Severe Environmental Assault
(SEA)
• A tsunami wave crashes over a street in Miyako City, Iwate Prefecture,
•
Every so-called “natural
disaster” plays-out
differently, or does it?
•
The 2010 earthquake in Haiti
is different to Higashi Nihon
Daishinsai, just as it differs
from any climate change
associated event – or is it?.
•
Our focus is on the human
influence side of the equation,
not on the nature and severity
of the critical event itself.
•
SEAs unleash massive
victimizing forces—
characterized by differential
degrees of human input.
The Victimizing Force (V
f
)
•
V
proposed transfers
understanding from the diverse
and wide range of severe
environmental assaults (i.e.,
short term/immediate assaults
such as tsunami & long
term/chronic assaults—played
out over years or decades, such
as climate change related
extreme weather events— to
the victim of those assaults
•
V
in the pre-exposure phase of
the assumption of victimhood
(i.e., prior to the onset of the
severe environmental assault)
is independent of any
categorization or orientation of
that SEA.
Victimizing Force
(Vf)
•
Vf
only becomes operational
when some threshold is
crossed– the threshold is that
point-in-time and/or in ones’
life experience when factors
other than the context in which
one leads ones’ life, act to
determine the impact or effect
of that victimizing force.
•
These factors are not
necessarily personality or
cultural factors, but may be
more deep-seated; i.e., there
may be some people
genetically programmed
to
withstand the impact of the
victimizing force more than
others.
Awareness of the
Vf
Awareness of victimizing
potential of
V
Reactions based on options
available
Awareness of V
f
Survivors of the 2004 Asian Tsunami were aware of
the danger of the surging waters but had the option of a tree to cling to.
-Differential Victimization in the
Aftermath of SEA
NON-VICTIMS OR RESILIENT SURVIVORS
• The overwhelming majority
• Able to identify the risk early enough • Aware that environmental assault like a
changing global climate is dangerous
• Have the options available to avoid
death
• A small group of high-risk (vulnerable)
people.
• Women, children or the elderly, but not
necessarily so
• Are unable to identify the threat
• Are unaware of its victimizing potential • Do not have the personal and social
resources to cope with Vf.
VICTIMS OR NON-RESILIENT SURVIVORS
The operationalization of V does not apply to:
•Giseisha (> 90% of deaths due to
natural disasters are in the developing world!)
•Hisaisha (survivors –an overwhelming
majority) because of their access to buffer resources to avoid victimization.
•Non-resilient victims (a small minority)
are those who do not have adequate buffer resources.
•Vf becomes operational when the V >
P-SCoping threshold
•To illustrate, the achievement of UN
goals of human security is dependent on raising the coping threshold by
facilitating access to options to cope with any potential victimizing force (V).
Victimization depends on
buffering mechanisms
of
psychosocial coping resources,
private property (including
property) and cultural and
religious resilience. That is, some
people are affected severely by
tsunamis (not including those
people who have died), while
others may not be so affected.
We need to be careful in how we
assess
the lifeboat syndrome
approach
(i.e., women, children,
elders) to vulnerability.
A more reasoned approach is to
use the concept of resilience
.•
Based on the magnitude of the
victimizing force and awareness of
that force, we can describe a
relatively low impact profile of
victimhood for those people who
survive as follows:
• High VMagnitude + High VAwareness = Low
VImpact •
•
Victims of SEAs are that relatively
small minority of vulnerable people
(possibly the elderly, or young
children) living in high risk areas who
are unaware of the victimizing
potential of the critical event or may
be unable to identify the threat early
enough and do not have the personal
or other resources available at that
time to avoid death.
An analogy is the current radicalization of dissident elements in Yemen because of suppression by government forces.
This has created an “at high risk” political habitus in any already
inequitable psychological and social environment.
This is the most effective way of driving the most vulnerable elements of Yemeni society into radical groups like Al Qaeda.
The habitus is the outcome of radicalization or the result of a multiplier effect on structural inequalities in Yemeni society.
The process driving the creation of a radicalized environment—or the
multiplier —is the victimizing force.
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing V
f
• Changes in rainfall
patterns leads to increased food
insecurity and poverty which leads to increased political instability
through inequalities that eventually culminate in armed conflict.
• An increase of 54%
in the incidence of armed conflict in sub-Saharan Africa is predicted by 2030 due to global environmental change.
Examples of victimizing habitus
Different people have different levels of coping with Vf dependent on the options they have available to cope.
Pathways (or coping options) are restricted by physical, political, psychological, social, and cultural borders that define the
lifescapes of individual people.
If these borders limit the resources available to cope, then a victimizing habitus is
created.
In current core UN terminology for disaster reduction, these people are vulnerable and are at risk [of being victimized] in high-risk environments (e.g., coastal areas ‘at risk’ of sea level rise, densely populated cities in earthquake prone areas, homes in high bushfire risk areas, and settlement around high-risk nuclear power plants built in fragile and earthquake-prone rural areas].
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing V
f
A V
only comes into effect (or a SEA is
actualized) is a personally relevant
victimizing habitus .
The SEA is actualized when the
threshold, boundary, or border between
normal and abnormal biological,
psychological, and socio-cultural coping
mechanisms (B
Coping threshold) of an
individual survivor (Hisaisha) is
breached.
This can be expressed as,
V
(non-operational) < P Coping thresholdV
(operational) > P Coping threshold
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing V
f
• If a victimizing habitus emerges for an
individual person as a result of a Vf, a psychological threshold separates those who can cope with trauma (resilience) from those who cannot.
• If a political, cultural, or social border
is raised (the natural flow of people cross-borders is stopped or their
lifescapes are physically, socially, and culturally constrained), the threshold is lowered for the Vf, to come into operation (i.e., the threshold is lowered for individuals to make the transition from being resilient to non-resilient).
• As a result, the boundaries of the
victimizing habitus for that individual person are extended.
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing V
f
V is a useful concept for understanding “natural disaster” that shifts focus from the SEA to the victim of that SEA.
Counter-intuitively, the potential threat of becoming a victim due a short term
environmental assault (e.g., a tsunami) is decreased because awareness of the V is relatively low level.
This is because there is insufficient time for “survivors” (not those who die) before the onset of the assault (seconds/minutes) to rationalize the threat—instinctive behaviors “lock-in” to increase the chance of survival. In contrast, the potential to become a victim due to SEA associated with climate change (long term environmental assaults) is
increased because awareness of the V is relatively high level (i.e., there is time to rationalize the threats and minimize
instinctive reactions like belief in climate change being dependent on recent weather patterns).
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing V
f
•
Victimizing Habitus &
Operationalizing V
In the Tohoku region, there are unconfirmed reports that local government had access tof
hazard maps for tsunami of both 4 and 8 meters in height, but residents were only provided with maps for a 4-meter tsunami scenario.
If such a risk management decision was made, key personnel in local governments
All SEAs are risk-free, or beyond the
event horizon, if there is no human
presence.
If human populations interact with
critical incidents, this interaction has
the potential to escalate to the level of
a disaster.
The more people involved, the higher
the density of the population
impacted, the more ‘at risk’ its
geographic location, and the fewer
options it has to escape the event, the
greater the intensity of the “disaster’.
Risk Management & Victimization
Risk management failure at the highest level—government complicity with the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) at the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Plant— is illustrated in that data were available to predict the level of care necessary to safeguard the health of plant workers and local communities.
The risk was managed by limiting
government/corporate responsibilities to a magnitude 8 earthquake with a
tsunami no more than a few meters even though much larger tectonic movements had been experienced in the recent
history of the Tohoku region.
As this SEA unfolds, failure of
management has had, and is having apocalyptic consequences for Japan and neighboring countries.
Risk Management & Victimization
Kieran G. Mundy
