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Investigating the “Discrete Memory” of the Seveso Disaster in Italy

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Governing Disasters

Abstract

In this text, I bring a long-term perspective to bear on an industrial accident that resulted in the contamination of an inhabited territory. Going beyond the immediate temporality of the event itself, I seek to recount the manner in which a disaster persists, is diluted, and transformed in the life of the affected community. I also question the link often drawn in the literature between the experience of disaster and the emergence of a “local risk culture.”1 From a reflexive point of view, finally, I seek to shed light upon and discuss some of the difficulties and tensions involved in research that above all aims to understand how a population responds to the radical disruption of its relationship to a territory.

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Authors

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Sandrine Revet Julien Langumier

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© 2015 Sandrine Revet and Julien Langumier

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Centemeri, L. (2015). Investigating the “Discrete Memory” of the Seveso Disaster in Italy. In: Revet, S., Langumier, J. (eds) Governing Disasters. The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137435460_7

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