This was shared by Lori Peek, Ph.D., Director, Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder via the Risk and
Disasters Topical Interest Group (TIG) at the Society for Applied Anthropology
The Stories We Tell
When the stories a society shares are out of tune with its
circumstances, they can become self-limiting, even a threat to survival. That
is our current situation.
David Korten, The Great Turning
Stories
are the threads that weave together the wisdom of the past. They give form to
present values and shape future possibilities. The best stories can open our
minds and hearts so that we build empathy and collectively experience moments
that we might otherwise miss. A story can change the entire trajectory of a
person’s life. That means stories can change the world.
For
this reason, we must pay attention to the stories we tell, as well as to those
that are told to us. But doing so can be uncomfortable among
professionals, in part because it is sometimes difficult to
judge their legitimacy. We all tell stories, though. We tell them to ourselves,
we tell them to those whom we care for and love, and we tell them through our
work. Stories are what connect us as humans. They have helped us to survive and
evolve, so we need them like a thirsty person needs water.
Stories
are often contested, though, and they can even become deadly when the powerful
use them as weapons of oppression. That is why throughout history we see the
dispossessed fighting for their own narratives, often placing their lives in
peril for a higher purpose—from the secret folk tales shared among
enslaved African Americans to the testimonials of tribal elders.
All struggles for liberation and justice are, at their root, about people
trying to tell their own versions of the past, present, and future.
Right
now, we are at a turning point. The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed
almost 400,000 lives globally. In the United States, higher
fatalities have been recorded among older adults, the medically fragile, and
Black, Latino, and Indigenous populations—proving yet again that those who are
marginalized often suffer first and worst in disasters. The devastating effects of climate change continue
unabated as glaciers shrink, sea levels rise, and temperatures climb. Hundreds
of mass protests calling
for an end to police brutality and systemic racism have sprung up across the
United States following the tragic and unconscionable killings of George Floyd
and Breonna Taylor. State-sanctioned violence, civil unrest, rioting, and
looting have ensued.
How
will historians and future generations look back on this time?
How will they
judge us for what we did—or did not do—in the face of mounting incivility,
inequality, and injustice?
What stories will they tell about us?
In
their book Active Hope, Joanna Macy and Chris
Johnstone assert that there are three stories of our time.
The first story,
which they refer to as Business as Usual, assumes that things
are on the right track and we should carry on with our current patterns of
consumption and economic growth.
The second story, the Great
Unraveling, focuses on the collapse of our ecological and social
systems, the depletion of resources, the mass extinction of species, and other
disastrous consequences of our current way of being.
Right
now, the Business as Usual story seems something akin to willful ignorance in
the face of the clear and present dangers that surround us. On the other hand,
viewing current events through the lens of the Great Unraveling is so
nightmarish that it can become psychologically paralyzing.
But
there is a third story, the Great Turning, and it is one of
possibility. The Great Turning requires a shift in our personal consciousness
and a change in our behaviors in order to counter the unraveling of our social
fabric. It requires collective action to help reconfigure our economic and
cultural systems. “In the story of the Great Turning,” Macy and Johnstone
write, “what’s catching on is commitment to act for the sake of life on Earth
as well as the vision, courage, and solidarity to do so.”
This
third story requires a turning away from old practices and systems that no
longer work—and which never worked for the poor, for women, or for racial
minorities. In the process, we have an opportunity to begin turning toward a
more just and sustainable future.
In
the hazards and disasters field, we have been turning toward a new story for a
good while. The notion that natural hazards losses are inextricably linked to
racism, poverty, pollution, and other slow-motion disasters is
now widely accepted. The recognition that the disproportionate damage from
natural hazards often deepens already existing inequalities has
been met by bold calls for embedding justice in our
disaster mitigation and recovery policies.
This
growing body of work—disaster studies rooted in a vision of justice and equity—acknowledges
that our environmental suffering is connected to and worsened by our social
suffering. It recognizes that because risk and vulnerability are the outcomes
of unequal power relations, that confronting risk will
necessarily require confronting power. The logical extension of
these insights is that if we want to reduce natural hazards losses we must work
just as fervently to reduce economic and social inequality and injustice in all
its forms.
These
issues, centuries in the making, might seem overwhelming now.
But each one of
us has a role to play in creating a more just world that we want to live in.
Start by asking yourself what you are most concerned about, and then consider
how you can bring your skills, talents, and strengths to bear on the problem at
hand. Then take the first step forward with the humble recognition that while
none of us know how this story will end, this is the way change always begins.
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