Peru Earthquake Summary

In this chapter, author and anthropologist from the University of Florida, discusses how the government of Peru handled the aftermath of the earthquake and the effect their choices had on the victims then and now, or until 1998. When viewed as an “act of God” (Doughty), natural disasters seem less relevant than man-made disasters like war. Natural disasters receive less attention than war, therefore the likeliness that a natural disaster will be dismissed as an inconvenience to theory or routine in bound to take place. With this, Doughty explains that “Such neglect links disaster to recovery with development programs and affects them similarly, especially in poor nations like Peru.” (Doughty, 1999). It seems that the lack of past experience mixed with policy creation and implementation has led to a lack of interest in eyes of the responsible institutions. Doughty uses this chapter to exemplify how the Peruvian government lacked a perspective on how to deal with the aftermath of the earthquake that would benefit the citizens involved both immediately and post-disaster. Using

Culture and society need to be able to rely upon strong leadership to change the outcome and begin the road to rehabilitation. In events such as the earthquake in Peru, and the Bhopal gas leak, you can see the lasting effects of a government unable to set aside differences or look past social classification when making decisions. This inability to do so can lead to a more chronic state of disaster as victims struggle to regain what has been taken from them. There does seem to be hope, as Christopher L Dyer explains in his chapter, some agencies belonging to a government have the ability to do what is right and not only improve the situation, but achieve the “Phoenix Effect”. Additionally, Hoffman defines how a culture or society is able to overcome disaster and maintain, or how disasters can alter how a culture