A New Species of Trouble: Human Experience of Modern Disasters [Paperback]

From the offset, A New Species of Trouble is an atypical approach for an academic work. Rather than an explicit thesis and clear connections that lead the reader from one set of evidence to the next, Erikson presents a series of fairly disparate case studies, leaving it to the reader to draw the connections. This is a reasonable burden, because Erikson is a vivid writer, pointing out the most pertinent aspects.

Beyond this offbeat approach, Erikson takes issue with several of the key assumptions in disaster studies. First among these is the definition of disaster: rather than the sudden, temporary events that characterize disaster literature, Erikson examines gnawing, progressing hazards. These are disasters of a sort; Erikson presents them causing similar trauma to victims and similar disruption of society, without attracting the attention of a hurricane or explosion. Some of these are more convincing than others: contamination by leaking toxins or mercury in water supplies are clearly disastrous in scope and gravity, as is the forced relocation of Ojibwe indians, resulting in the collapse of societal norms. Even the betrayal of trust, as seen in the Immokalee embezzlement case or in Three Mile Island can be seen having disaster consequences. But is the incidence of homelessness structural in our economic system disastrous?

Erikson's case studies provoke many other, less central presumptions in the study of disaster. What is trauma? What is toxicity, and does it have a social component? What are the values of social relationships? Each of these is addressed more implicitly than explicitly, but provoke innovative thinking. His conclusions are anything but conclusive, but Erikson is asking good questions.

In A New Species of Trouble, Kai Erikson presents several short stories about environmental and social concerns that have arisen from anthropocentric causes. For instance, The Haitians of Immokalee details the effects on immigrants and families of an incident in Immokalee, Florida in which three hundred and four people lost the majority of their savings at a local depository. Residents had trusted the depository to keep their funds safe, and were emotionally distraught after not being able to collect the funds that they had worked long and difficult hours to earn. Immigrants could not provide for themselves or their families, especially family members abroad that they had been sending money to. Sick loved ones at home could not get the financial help they needed to be treated, and children did not receive the necessary funding to attend school, which provided a viable means to advance in the world. Depression and lack of direction afflicting many of the victims, and many lost their sense of trust.

Moreover, Being Homeless discusses homelessness in America, and the constant shift many in America make in and out of homeless conditions depending on a myriad factors such as a lack of an accepting family, to not possessing adequate resources to combat illness, bankruptcy, bills, and other pressures. The story also details the effect homelessness can have on people, contributing to a feeling of disconnectedness from society, and attracting disdainful attitudes and perceptions from the public.

However, Erikson then attributes homelessness to the allocation of resources, proclaiming, "The resources of this land are so apportioned that hundreds of thousands of persons are without housing any given day...and several million are poor and vulnerable that homelessness is but a misstep away" (168). After carefully detailing several contributing reasons, it is peculiar that Erikson definitively suggests that homelessness can be explained through land resource allocation. Erikson then suggests that this imbalance in the distribution of resources stems from underlying social, tax, and economic policies in America that allows for homelessness. Erikson states, "...[W]e may be said to create homelessness by the way we set incentives, the way we allot tax burdens, the way we tune the economy" (168). To suggest prior to stating this, that homelessness is a complex problem with a multitude of contributing factors, only later to blame "policy" in such vague terms, is problematic. It is very difficult to understand what Erikson means by "incentives" and "the way we tune the economy," and it is disappointing that more detail or qualifying explanations are not presented, when Erikson was clearly trying to present a significant suggestion. The point is a failed one, because of the lack of explanatory details and unclear language, and conflicting suggestions of homelessness being a complex issue and it being one that can merely be blamed on American "policy."

Furthermore, in Yucca Mountain, Erikson details the controversy and broad social and environmental concerns associated with the use of Yucca Mountain in the desert of southern Nevada as a nuclear waste storage site. Many concerns are evaluated in utilizing this site, such as its effect on Nevada tourism, to the safety hazards posed to residents from nuclear materials. Erikson notes that it has been federal policy to alleviate waste concerns, so as not to pass them on to future generations. Consequently, permanent solutions to nuclear waste disposal are often sought, and Erikson comes to criticize the idea of "geological burial," that waste should be buried deep in the earth to "remove it from the environment" (224). Erikson argues that this permanent solution inevitably passes the negative effects on to future generations through the "poisoning" of the natural environment, and an uncertain risk from the nuclear waste burial. In what is a conflicting suggestion, Erikson then proclaims, "So perhaps the government should relax its insistence on immediate and irreversible burial and turn to forms of storage that allow both continuous monitoring and retrieval," further noting that this "maximizes flexibility and keeps options open (225). These proposals present the exact same problem of passing the negative effects on to future generations, especially forms of storage that would allow for "continuous retrieval." Nuclear waste in a storage form that allows for retrieval means that the waste is accessible and thus not very secure, and inherently this creates a situation in which the waste will threaten the public and endanger resources that could carry into the future. Erikson's solution of "flexibility" is not a real solution, and certainly not one that is free from causing the same effects as permanent nuclear waste deposit. It is uncertain how this solution is very much favorable or different from permanent burial, which Erikson criticizes.

This book is really awesome. An easy read and very informing