Disasters remembered and forgottenMany big disasters such as the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, the Bhopal chemical disaster, or major oil spills in Alaska, France, Spain and elsewhere have a major and lasting impact on public health, the environment, and the social and economic fabric of the communities affected (Davidson, 1990;Jasanoff, 1994). Still, despite such objectively recognizable footprints, not all disasters become equally deeply rooted in collective memory. Why are some mass catastrophes more or less 'forgotten'-a case in point is the Chicago heat wave of 1995 that claimed more than 700 lives, but has been practically erased from American public memory, which has retained much more vivid images of much less deadly disasters such as hurricane Andrew and the Lockerbie Pan Am tragedy (Klinenberg, 2001), and more recently has been mesmerized by '9-11'-whereas others are so vividly remembered in monuments, commemorations and public discourse? This general question inspired the research reported in this article. Specifically, we wanted to study how and to what extent people and communities victimized by disaster are able to shape and correct 'official,' governmental efforts at disaster investigation and remembrance.Our key claim is that the extent and nature of disaster remembrance is not solely a question of physical characteristics such as the number of casualties, nor of the degree of social disturbance they cause at the time of their occurrence; instead it should be viewed as a product of a political encounter between 6International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters

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Flooding has long been a recurrent problem in the Argentinian city of Santa Fe, mainly affecting the poverty-stricken suburban outskirts. In 2003 one of the worst floods ever occurred, which also affected residents in the middle income sectors who had never been flooded before and who reacted with an extraordinary process of commemoration and protest against the government for its lax disaster management. Paradoxically, most other past disastrous floods in the city’s history seem to dwell in the shadows of social oblivion. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the years 2004–2011, this article analyzes how local flood memories are made through daily life practices and places in the suburban outskirts, more than through public commemorations, which has implications for vulnerability and risk.

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