ABSTRACT
Modern scholars of natural hazards predict that in developed countries with complex, state-level social organisations, disasters can be mitigated through aid programmes, redistribution of resources, etc., whereas egalitarian societies with smaller social networks have a wide range of responses, but are more likely to fail to adapt and will abandon their homeland (e.g. Chester, 1993: table 8.4). Anthropologists have often painted quite a different picture in which traditional societies are and have been very resilient and adaptable in the face of extreme climatic events. In their view modernisation has often undermined capable traditional means for coping with hazards. They therefore argue that the vulnerability of indigenous groups witnessed in recent disasters is a result of their marginalisation through globalisation and externally forced changes (e.g. Oliver- Smith, 1996: 312–14).
