Anthropological Studies in Hazardous Environments: Past Trends and New Horizons [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract

Losses arising from natural disasters continue to mount world-wide, though the most alarming social and economic dislocations are occurring in developing countries. How effectively social institutions protect against and adjust to catastrophic events is an issue which has generated a growing body of research. This paper surveys anthropological contributions to natural-disaster studies and considers their relevance for disaster mitigation policy. Finally, several loss reduction policy problems falling well within the scope of anthropological research are outlined.