Werewolves and warning signs: Cultural responses to tropical cyclones in Mauritius

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Learning from the archives of island jurisdictions : why and how island history should inform disaster risk reduction and climate action

There is a growing literature challenging assumptions about what ‘data’ on disaster risks and climate change can be and arguing for the need to account for experiences and knowledge from across deeper history. In this paper, we argue that small island states and sub-national jurisdictions can especially benefit from a broader understanding of what data can be and we illustrate how historical narrative and descriptive data from archives can act as a valuable source of knowledge on disasters and climate, both past, and present. Yet, in order to use (and not misuse) these archival sources, we must first appreciate how islands and their histories have previously been engaged with, and how certain narratives about small islands may have shaped how historical data is engaged with (or not). We critically analyse current approaches when engaging with island histories, with particular consideration of the legacy of colonisation and imperialism, and how this is manifested in historical data and methods. Finally, we explore how island histories can educate and inform, locally and globally, realising connections between communities across time and space. We conclude that narrative and descriptive archival historical data is an invaluable source for understanding island vulnerability and resilience. Without such data, our understanding, and our efforts to address contemporary challenges, are likely to be flawed. However, we caution against elevating any one type of data or disciplinary lens. By combining such data with multiple types of data, both literate and non-literate, we can reach a deeper historical and long-term understanding of disaster risks and climate change in small island states and sub-national island jurisdictions.peer-reviewe

Helices of disaster memory: How forgetting and remembering influence tropical cyclone response in Mauritius

Tropical cyclones have had a considerable impact on Mauritius. Large cyclones are relatively rare, and in popular imagination are thought to hit Mauritius every 15 years. Yet it has been over 25 years since the last cyclone widely considered as ‘significant’. Critically, there is little known about the role of memory in responses to cyclones ¬and details regarding responses to past cyclones in Mauritian history are scant. This article examines past experiences and impacts of cyclones in Mauritius, as well as contemporary perceptions of cyclone vulnerability and memories of historical cyclones. The analysis draws on both community interviews and archival research conducted in Mauritius. The analysis takes a longue durée approach and combines examination of both event and process with historical discourses in an effort to uncover the long-standing and slowly changing relationships between people and extreme events. The results reveal a number of repetitive patterns of responses that act out over the long term and repeat for many of the largest cyclones, indicating that tropical cyclone impact and recovery in Mauritius is strongly conditioned by complex, cultural, and place based memory (and forgetting). While these patterns could be characterised as cycles, the research instead presents a concept of ‘helices’ as a new conceptualisation of long term disaster memory patterns. This research is part of a growing literature arguing for the need to account for the historical processes fundamental to understanding vulnerability. This has implications for disaster risk reduction (including climate change adaptation) in Mauritius, other small islands, and elsewhere

Werewolves and warning signs:Cultural responses to tropical cyclones in Mauritius

publishedVersio