Living through Crises

What could a cross-historical approach to ‘natural’ disasters and crises help generate? Scientists across the social and physical sciences are more dedicated than ever to understanding, responding to and preventing future crises. The methodological and theoretical perspectives they work across are vast however, and therefore not always easy to work across. This workshop asks what experts preparing for future risks and disasters and scholars investigating historical ones can learn from one another; and what connections and comparisons can emerge from these different perspectives on living with and through crises and insecurities.

Bringing together scholars working across history, global health, meteorology, anthropology, geography and archaeology, this workshop will present panellists with two hypothetical future scenarios: a healthcare crisis and an urban 'natural' disaster. Based on their own research and area of expertise, panellists will discuss what we should consider ahead of, during or in the aftermath of such a scenario, and how they would respond.

Organisers: Dr Aeron O'Connor (Research Fellow, UCL Anthropology and Lecturer [Teaching] Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction), Gabriella Santini (UCL Anthropology) and Anuja Jaitly (UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction)

Programme:

10am – 1pm Living with and through outbreaks | Gordon Street (25) 505

Panellists:

• Lisa Danquah (Lecturer in Global Health, Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, UCL)
• Jerome Lewis (Reader, Department of Anthropology, UCL)
• Emily Webster (Assistant Professor in the History and Philosophy of Health and Medicine, Department of Philosophy, Durham University)
• Ann H. Kelly (Professor of Anthropology & Global Health, Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, Kings College London)

1 – 2pm Lunch

2 – 5pm Urban life in the face of ‘natural’ hazards | Archaeology Lecture Theatre, Institute of Archaeology, 31-34 Gordon Square

Panellists:

• Ting Sun (Lecturer in Climate and Meteorological Hazard Risks, Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, UCL)
• Mark Pelling (Professor in Risk and Disaster Reduction, Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, UCL)
• John Murphy (Research Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University)
• Chair and Discussant: John Haldon (Professor of European History, Department of History, Princeton University. Director of the Climate Change and History Research Initiative)

5-7pm Wine reception | Student Common Room, Department of Anthropology, 14 Taviton Street