Disasters, Ruins, and Crises: Masculinity and Ramifications of Storms in Vietnam

Citation:

Rydström, Helle. 2020. "Disasters, Ruins, and Crises: Masculinity and Ramifications of Storms in Vietnam." Ethnos 85 (2) 351-70.

Author: Helle Rydström

Abstract:

This article explores climate disasters in the era of the Anthropocene from a gender specific crisis perspective; as conditions of unpredictable outcomes and ruination which are encroaching differentiated ramifications upon inhabitants in coastal Vietnam. The article contests the ways in which the notions of vulnerability and resilience tend to understand a disaster as an interrupting event, which could be overcome by those upon whom the damage has befallen so life can return to normal. A crisis perspective, the article argues, offers an alternative avenue to an analysis of disasters by focusing on the entanglements between a crisis of emergency and a spectrum of various crises antecedents fostered by gendered livelihoods, masculinized privileges, and violences. When various crises modalities, intensities, and temporalities intersect with one another, a crisis in context might morph into crisis as context; into a disordered order of slow harm which impedes the return to pre-disaster normalcy.

Keywords: Anthropocene, Crisis, climate disaster, gender, masculinity, violence, Vietnam

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Livelihoods, Violence Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Vietnam

Year: 2020