ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the development, progress, and current state-of-the-art tools of the anthropological study of risk and disasters in Mexico, almost four decades after the publication of the pioneer works aforementioned and of the contribution the 1985 earthquakes triggered. It considers the achievements made in publications and in undergraduate and graduate theses. The chapter explores special emphasis on the contributions made by social anthropology to the study and understanding of risk and disasters in the theoretical and methodological level. Global history is littered with examples that show the non-natural condition of disasters, that natural hazards and disasters are not synonymous nor should they be, that natural hazards are socially constructed and become socionatural hazards. Recognizing the importance of adopting a focus on vulnerability and, later on, shifting to the identification of risk and its social construction as the central element in the occurrence of disasters, has been critical in the advance of visions towards disaster risk reduction.
