ABSTRACT
A proper starting point for the study of environmental hazards is the epistemology and conception of nature itself. A great deal of the conceptual and theoretical questions posed by the natural hazard paradigm emerges from the broad epistemological context in which such work is ultimately grounded. This should come as no surprise because, as Gregory Bateson pointed out long ago, epistemological premises which predicate all intellectual labour are notoriously sticky and colour all theoretical practice. The chapter considers basic arguments with respect to the general body of environmental research of which hazards specifically part. Although geographic work on hazards has often been seen as a separate realm of enquiry associated with decision-making models, it is clearly aligned with the phalanx of work which broadly falls under the title of human-cultural ecology or ecological anthropology. Largely under the auspices of Gilbert White, a field of geographic natural hazards research was conceived.
