Disaster Nationalism

Vivian Y. Choi is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at St. Olaf College.

Note on Transliteration ix Abbreviations xi Preface: The Struggle Endures xiii Acknowledgments xvii Interlude 1 Introduction 3 Interlude 35 1. Emergence 37 Interlude 57 2. Anticipation 59 Interlude 77 3. Endurance 79 Interlude 101 4. Reiteration 103 Interlude 135 Postscript 137 Notes 147 References 159 Index 191

"Vivian Y. Choi's portrayal and analysis of how disasters are endured by people, portrayed by the media and strategized by governments as well as her descriptions of the different kinds of sensing that disasters provoke-from scientists and people living in disaster zones to the government's disaster warning systems-are exemplary and important. With this analysis, she draws disaster studies into an important stream of work in the history and anthropology of science that examines forms of knowledge and knowledge representation that secure legitimacy in different historical and cultural settings." - Kim Fortun, author of (Advocacy after Bhopal: Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders) "For ordinary people in Sri Lanka, disasters come in multiple fronts and layers. Vivian Y. Choi's beautiful, rich, and deeply original ethnography teaches us how to address complex lives within the global South, forcing us to think about disasters and disaster management as political projects and to prioritize how ordinary people in Sri Lanka inhabit lives informed by a constant sense of danger. This book is a gift to us all." - Sharika Thiranagama, author of (In My Mother's House: Civil War in Sri Lanka) "As fires, floods, pandemics, and warfare increasingly compete for collective attention, what happens to ideas about futurity and governance? Vivian Y. Choi not only unpacks the 'when' of disaster in Sri Lanka; she provides a vital new grammar for understanding how national security is remade as amplifying precarity. An indispensable contribution to understanding our troubled times." - Joseph Masco, author of (The Future of Fallout, and Other Episodes in Radioactive World-Making)