Sustainable flood memory: Remembering as resilience

Garde-Hansen, Joanne; McEwen, Lindsey; Holmes, Andrew; Jones, Owain

doi:10.1177/1750698016667453

Cited by 66 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…These 'functional memories', as Pfister calls them, can also be witnessed in the aftermath of the floods of 2007 in South West England. Remembering functioned as a way of coping with the catastrophe, and fostering resilience, a process that can aptly be described with the concept of 'sustainable flood memory' (Garde-Hansen et al 2017). Memory studies remind us of the fact that although disasters may become fixed points of reference in the nation's history, the memory of these events remains dynamic, changeable and influenced by presentday preoccupations (Erll 2011).…”

Section: Multidisciplinary Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Floods as shapers of Dutch cultural identity: media, theories and practices

Jensen

2021

Water Hist

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This article offers a theoretical framework which can be used to study processes of national identity formation through the lens of nature-induced disasters, such as floods. Firstly, it discusses the current state of affairs in historical disaster studies and shows how this field may be enriched by adapting the concept of the ‘imagined community’ developed in nationalism studies. It furthermore combines insights and concepts from literary studies, cultural studies and memory studies. Secondly, it applies this framework to Dutch history, by discussing the role of flood narratives in shaping a national identity. Studying the Dutch representations of flood disasters illustrates how the nation’s identity was shaped by the cultural media that communicated these events. They made use of a recurrent set of tropes, which linked the emergence of national identity to the capacity for coping with floods. This was articulated in a narrative framework, which consisted of standard ingredients, such as the such as the highlighting of horrific events, miraculous rescues, and God’s providence. Furthermore, authors foregrounded the involvement of Dutch kings and queens during flood disasters, and framed of the Dutch as being charitable by nature. The analysis of a wide range of media (stories, poems, treatises) shows how processes of national identity formation were shaped in cultural discourses in the aftermath of disasters, a process that is still going on.

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Section: Multidisciplinary Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Floods as shapers of Dutch cultural identity: media, theories and practices

Jensen

2021

Water Hist

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“…Vertical memory is enduring and intergenerational, while horizontal memory as intra‐generational (McEwen et al . ; Garde‐Hansen et al ., in press) is increasingly shareable through social digital media.…”

Section: Conceptual Framings: Resilience Community Lay Knowledge Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable flood memories, lay knowledges and the development of community resilience to future flood risk

McEwen¹,

Garde-Hansen

Holmes³

et al. 2016

Trans Inst British Geog

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115

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The paradigm shift to more distributed flood risk management strategies in the UK involves devolved responsibilities to the local, and the need to enhance risk ownership by communities. This poses questions about how communities build resilience to future flood risk, and how agencies support these processes. This paper explores results from interdisciplinary research on 'sustainable flood memory' in the context of effective flood risk management as a conceptual contribution to a global priority. The project aimed to increase understanding of how flood memories provide a platform for developing and sharing lay knowledges, creating social learning opportunities to increase communities' adaptive capacities for resilience. The paper starts by conceptually framing resilience, community, lay knowledge and flood memory. It then explores key themes drawn from semi-structured interviews with floodplain residents affected by the UK summer 2007 floods in four different settings, which contrasted in terms of their flood histories, experiences and kinds of 'communities'. Sustainable flood memories were found to be associated with relational ways of knowing, situated in emotions, changing materiality and community tensions. These all influenced active remembering and active forgetting. The paper reflects on varying integrations of memory, lay knowledges and resilience, and critically evaluates implications of the sustainable flood memory concept for the strategy, process and practice of developing community flood resilience. Given the concept's value and importance of 'memory work', the paper proposes a framework to translate the concept practically into community resilience initiatives, and to inform how risk and flood experiences are communicated within communities.

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“…The critical place of memory in both pre‐disaster planning and post‐disaster recovery is increasingly understood (Garde‐Hansen et al ., ; McEwen et al ., ). At its core, research into disaster memory disrupts the definition of past disasters as temporally discrete events with finite impact and recovery periods, instead highlighting the enduring political, social, and cultural impacts of these events and the cyclic nature of the hazards by which they are often triggered.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Remembering and forgetting 1974: the 2011 Brisbane floods and memories of an earlier disaster

McKinnon

2019

Geographical Research

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The city of Brisbane, capital of the Australian state of Queensland, sits on a floodplain and has been struck by two devastating flood disasters in the last 50 years. This article contributes to the growing literature on disaster memory by tracing memories of a flood in 1974 as they were constructed and re‐enacted in a more recent disaster in 2011. The article examines how disaster memories shape local identities and considers how such memories influence policy and local knowledge, doing so by reference to an analysis of three forms of memory media—personal narratives, news media reporting, and built memorials. At times, memories of 1974 enabled Brisbane residents to prepare for an oncoming flood and to understand the scope of the 2011 event. Yet other memories produced a form of forgetting by positioning the earlier flood as a successfully navigated event now safely contained in the past. Findings from the analysis thus point to the importance of understanding memories of past disasters as a critical element of disaster planning and management.

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Sustainable flood memory: Remembering as resilience

Cited by 66 publications

References 32 publications

Floods as shapers of Dutch cultural identity: media, theories and practices

Floods as shapers of Dutch cultural identity: media, theories and practices

Sustainable flood memories, lay knowledges and the development of community resilience to future flood risk

Remembering and forgetting 1974: the 2011 Brisbane floods and memories of an earlier disaster

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