Old answers to new questions: using past disaster narratives to make today's organisations more resilient to the challenges of the Anthropocene

Abstract

The Anthropocene will see a significant increase in the likelihood, frequency, and intensity of natural hazards. This altered context poses new challenges for global societies and economies. In addition to sustainability efforts, building resilience and reducing disaster risk thus become increasingly important strategic topics. This paper proposes that inspiration for how to respond to these challenges, and even use them for transformation and sustainable innovation, may lie in the distant past. By applying insights from sociological disaster studies and discourse analysis to earthquake narratives from ancient Greece, it will be shown how extreme natural events may, or may not, trigger disaster. Subsequently, implications for organisational resilience and disaster risk reduction in the Anthropocene will be derived.