Abstracts
Livelihoods
Panel II: Earthquake: Disaster Management in the Context of Pakistan
Session I:
 Female Body, Media, and the Earthquake: A Case of Politics of Representation
Huma Haque*
This paper looks at the public discourse (the term being used in a Foucouldian sense) generated around women affected by the recent earthquake in Pakistan. The author looks at the representation of women in the print media as well as discursive practices that have arisen around the effected women as observed by the author as well as reported in the print media. The author argues that this discourse has converted female body into a space where subjugated gendered identity that already exists in the larger culture is reinforced. It is argued, however, that on the margins of this discourse there also appear occasional ‘rapturous moments’ in the sense that Gramsci uses the concept. In these marginal rapturous moments the gendered power differential, as it exists in the society, is reversed and brought into question, thus opening up a space for negotiation of meanings around masculinity and femininity. The author concludes by going into an exploration of the articulation of female body as a media space, and earthquake-hit areas as geographical spaces, and argues that these are co-joined by the underlying idea of control, subjugation and regulation on part of the state.
* Dr. Huma Haque teaches at the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.
Environmental Aspect of Natural Disasters in Relation to Human Activities
Muhammad Irfan Khan*
All natural disasters emanate from man’s biophysical environment. Natural disasters are nothing more than natural processes. They become hazards only when people live or work in areas where theses processes occur naturally. The naturalness of these hazards is a barrier that we encounter when we try to minimize their adverse effects as disasters. Effects of human activities on natural environment either increase or reduce the occurrence of natural disasters.
In the scenario of the 8th October earthquake in Pakistan, there is at present no reliable scientific evidence for environmental (mis)-management as a cause for the earthquake. However, the extent and scope of the damage and loss to a certain extent are undeniably man-made and are linked with environmental management. For example, there is a strong evidence that slopes with a good forest cover have provided better protection for buildings and roads from the landslides caused by the earthquake than the denuded slopes.
The deforestation is an environmental issue. The phenomenon of global warming and its effect on glaciers is also an environmental aspect which causes melting and retreat of glaciers and is considered to be linked with earthquake hazard due to disposing of load on Earth’s crust, which allows tectonic plates to move. Abnormal meteorological phenomena, earthquakes and fluctuations of the earth's axis are related in a direct cause-and-effect to testing of nuclear devices. Scientists say that nuclear testing is the cause of abnormal polar motion of the earth. Now the concerns are growing. Do bomb tests actually cause earthquakes? Do nuclear tests make the planet more prone to geologic disruption? These are all human activities, which also need to be considered in the context of strategic geopolitics. The argument is that among future means of obtaining national objectives by force, one possibility hinges on man’s ability to control and manipulate the environment of his planet. When achieved, this power over his environment will provide man with a new force capable of doing great and indiscriminate damage. Our present primitive understanding of deliberate environmental change makes it difficult to imagine a world in which geophysical warfare is practiced. Such a world might be one in which nuclear weapons were effectively banned.
The paper will, therefore, identify the hazardous processes, their causes and effects in a wider perspective. It will analyze the human-environment interaction in a cause-and-effect relationship in the context of disasters, natural or otherwise.
* Dr. Muhammad Irfan Khan is head of Environmental Science Department, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad. Dr. Khan is an environmental scientist involved in research and training in the field of environment since 1985, when he started his carrier as university lecturer. Dr. Khan has been a consultant to the World Bank, Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Water and Power, the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
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