Vulnerability and 'Natural' Disasters

Sarah Bradshaw discusses the concept of disaster and its imapct on vulnerable populations. First, she stipulates that there is no such thing as a natural disaster; there are natural hazards, like hurricanes or earthquakes, and they become disasters when they have an impact on a population that can’t respond to that event. Next, she asks: What defines a vulnerable population? She also discusses the notion of adaptive realism, which relates to responding to the risks that we think we can change or that are imminent. The vulnerability of a region lies in why those people came to live there and so becomes as much about inequality and power, and therefore political and historical, as about natural events. 

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