Our urban and rural landscapes
are in a state of constant flux, they are never static. Disturbances occur all
the time, some expected and some unexpected. The environment always responds to
these changes, how, is dependent on scale of space and time (Bell 1999).
However humankind is now in
an unprecedented and extraordinary position. There has never been a time in
human history that our life-sustaining environment on earth has rapidly changed
in one generation. Most of the changes are attributed to human activities
through less ecologically balanced economic and technological activities that
can potentially raise conflicts through physical, biological and social
interactions (International Centre of Interdisciplinary and Advanced Research
2011).
Earthquakes, floods,
hurricanes, tsunamis, torrential rainfall, droughts, food shortages, melting
polar caps, degraded soil quality, rising fuel prices, unemployment, riots,
political upheaval and bankrupt countries. The new millennium has so far been
epitomized by changes in economic life, global industries, advancements in and
accessibility to technology and the increase in natural disasters.
Gilding (2011) has
demonstrated clear arguments to show that the economy has clearly outgrown the
earth’s limits. Two major indicators of this being that ‘resource constraints
have been forcing prices up and ecosystem changes were accelerating at a scale
suggesting that systemic shifts and tipping points were underway’.
There have been further indications
and warnings of the force of human induced ecological and geological changes for
many decades now stating that unless we change the way we live and use the
resources within them, the impacts of man would result in a crash –economically,
socially, physically and environmentally (Girardet 2008).
We still
talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature enough to think of
ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man’s attitude
towards nature is today critically important because we have now acquired a
fateful power to destroy nature. But man is part of nature and his war against
nature is inevitably a war against himself.
Rachel Carson (1962)
We are at a turning point.
The multitude and magnitude of disasters affecting the world today is hard to
go unnoticed and both our anthropocentric and biocentric environments have to respond
in new and more dynamic ways. One of the terms given to landscapes that have
been affected by a natural or human induced disaster is crisis landscapes. This
chapter intends to define what is meant by crisis landscapes for the purpose of
this study.
Definition of crisis
According to the majority of
dictionary definitions the word crisis can be identified as meaning a crucial
or decisive moment or situation, at a point of time, of great danger or difficulty.
The word crisis is apparently derived from the Greek meaning 'turning point',
and should strictly refer to a moment rather than a continuing process, so that
uses such as a prolonged economic crisis
are strictly speaking self-contradictory (Fowlers modern English dictionary
2012). However, while many crises are started from rapid onset events, there
are conditions that still lead to a crisis but have less clear start and end
points. While there is less clarity of these points in time it doesn’t mean it isn’t
a crisis (Glantz 1994).
The Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
see a crisis as a situation of complex systems, such as family, economic,
societal and environmental systems, and ‘when the system functions badly an
immediate decision is necessary to stop further disintegration of the system,
but the causes of the dysfunction are not necessarily known’. Venette (2003)
argues that ‘crisis is a process of transformation where the old system can no
longer be maintained’ backing up Seegar, Sellnow and Ulmer’s (1998) theory that
of their four defining characteristics of a crisis, one is the need for change.
Crisis linked to opportunity
Whilst there is much debate
over its true meaning many people believe that the Chinese ideogram for crisis
is made up of two character symbols, one that translates as danger and the
other that translates as opportunity. An opportunity is a situation, which
makes it possible to do something that you want to do, or the possibility of
doing something (Cambridge dictionary).
Mair, (2009) a professor in
Chinese literature, has ridiculed the translation stating that a crisis ‘is not
a juncture when one goes looking for advantages and benefits. In a crisis, one
wants above all to save one’s skin and neck! Any would-be guru who advocates
opportunism in the face of crisis should be run out of town on a rail, for his
/ her advice will only compound the danger of the crisis’. He believes it is ‘muddled
thinking’ that lures people into a false sense of security in believing that
they can benefit from unstable situations.
However Bast (1999) believes
that humans grow emotionally and spiritually from crises and in her experience
doesn’t believe that just because we could benefit from a crisis we would
welcome one. Humans may feel that the experience of a crisis can turned around
into a positive outcome as it has caused them to stop and look at what really
matters in a relatively short lifetime.
Although the debate into the actual true meaning
of crisis continues, the notion that opportunity can present itself out of a
crisis is widely accepted. Olshansky and Johnson’s (2008) research identified
that the recovery from a crisis offers some intriguing opportunities for
positive change. For the purpose of this dissertation crisis is to be defined as
a turning point, a time when change has to occur, derived from an event that has
either a sudden onset or a set gradual conditions.
