Cultural Histories, Memories and Extreme Weather: A Historical Geography Perspective

ISBN-13: 9781138207653 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 174 str.

UK) Georgina H. Endfield (University of Liverpool; UK) Lucy Veale (The University of Nottingham

Opis

There is growing concern over the impacts of climate variability and anomalous and unusual weather. While social and economic systems have generally evolved to accommodate some deviations from 'normal' weather conditions, this is rarely true of extremes. For this reason such events can have the greatest and most immediate social and economic impact of all climate changes. This book is the first to explore the cultural contingency of such weather events, and the ways in which they are recalled, recorded or forgotten. It illustrates how geographical context, particular physical conditions, an area's social and economic activities and embedded cultural knowledges and infrastructures all affect community experiences of and responses to unusual weather. Contributions refer to varied methods of remembering and recording weather and how these act to curate, recycle and transmit extreme events across generations and into the future. With international case studies, from both land and sea, the book explores how and why particular weather events become inscribed into the cultural fabric of communities and contribute to community change in different historical and cultural contexts.

Spis treści

1. Climate, culture and weather 2. Learning to say "Phew" instead of "Brrr": social and cultural change during the British summer of 1976 3. On the home front: Australians and the 1914 drought 4. Extreme weather and the growth of charity: insights from the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society, 1839–1860 5. The temporal memory of major hurricanes 6. "May God place a bridge over the River Tywi": interrogating flood perceptions and memories in Welsh medieval poetry 7. Remembering in God’s name: the role of the church and community institutions in the aftermath and commemoration of floods 8. "The ice shards are gone": traditional ecological knowledge of climate and culture among the Cree of the Eastern James Bay, Canada 9. Post-scripting extreme weather: textuality, eventhood, resilience