The Ethics of Memory: Commemorating Disasters in an Age of Risk

Abstract

While technological disasters have become common to contemporary society, little attention has been paid to the relationship between memory and risk society. By analyzing a commemoration marking the fortieth anniversary of the 1972 Buffalo Creek, West Virginia coal impoundment failure, this article argues that these types of commemoration serve as a resource for a collective identity of advocacy, an identity, however, constituted by fear and distrust. As a form of deliberative rhetoric, a disaster commemoration may also generate a vision of the future and establish the inexpediency of certain modern industrial practices and products. While the generation of public fear raises ethical issues, the creation of such an emotional state serves as a means of political advocacy and collective public action.