A Response to the Review of “Catastrophe and Culture” by Richard W. Franke

Abstract

Although we appreciate and admire the efforts of all scholars who take on the task of reviewing new books in their field, it is difficult to give credence to a review that does not get the authors of various chapters correct, or the number of chapters a particular author wrote. We say this in response to the review of Richard W. Franke of our book, Catastrophe and Culture (Susanna M. Hoffman and Anthony Oliver-Smith, Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 2002), in a recent issue of the American Anthropologist (106[4]:765-766). In his review, Franke mentions two chapters by Virginia Garcia-Acosta. Garcia-Acosta, in fact, wrote only one of the chapters in the volume, and Franke assesses that chapter wrongly. GarciaAcosta's fine chapter uses 450 years of economic data, not earthquake and other disaster data, to reveal that disasters, not considered important enough by recorders of Mexican social history to document, had occurred. This revelation demonstrated that disasters of a number of sorts, not just earthquakes, had been chronic and patterned in Mexican history, and in each case, they had critically altered social and cultural practices-one of the major points of the volume. Whatever chapter Franke refers to as Garcia-Acosta's second contribution, we, the editors of the book, cannot identify. Also, although Franke states that the book lacks clear focus, he neglects to mention the thorough and comprehensive introduction to the collected chapters that precisely details the focus of the book. The book, mirroring the field, contains four major interrelated sections: (1) the construction of disaster, including social and cognitive choices, historical consequences, and cultural traditions; (2) the events of the disaster that profoundly effect the survivors and the structure of an entire community; (3) recovery from an event, which potentially modifies cultural symbols, religious rites, memory, kinship and class organization, gender relations, economics, politics, and more, from local to national levels; and (4) the response to devastating events. The introduction lays out the four areas and the chapters of the volume are organized in a processual manner to address them. Almost every chapter internally addresses each area and the chapters all cite and cross-reference the other chapters of the book.