Assessing Urban Vulnerability in the Context of Flood and Heat Hazard: Pathways and Challenges for Indicator-Based Analysis

Applying indicators in the context of vulnerability assessments is widespread but remains challenging for various reasons. This article focuses on quantitative estimates of urban vulnerability to climate change related hazards. It presents a methodology to assess three components of residential vulnerability in areas of different socio-environmental conditions: exposure, susceptibility and coping capacity, including the selection of indicators, combination of variables and building of indices. The overall purpose is the assessment of urban vulnerability in order to allow for a more precise consideration of who is vulnerable and why, and to demonstrate the potential coping capacities of people living in flood and heat prone areas. This acknowledges that in Santiago de Chile, the case study used to underpin this article empirically, only hazard exposure assessments have been undertaken so far. The case study findings of the vulnerability assessment confirm that the indicator-based approach is appropriate for analysis of exposure and susceptibility, but that coping capacity appraisal remains a challenge.     

Approaching Cultural Change in the Era of Globalisation: An Interview with T.K. Oommen

An exercise in academic signature, 'Is Jew/Greek Greek/Jew : or does 'Hebrew' mean Cross'over?' tries to account for the differential claims on identity when one finds oneself, at the same time, a religious Jew and a university professor specializing in secular texts. What does such a one, in fact, profess? How to negotiate the (mostly figurative) translation of Greek into H ebrew, and H ebrew into Greek, in a m ore than m erely academ ic sense- indeed when 'the academic' offers but one of several competing possibilities for personal and social identities? Preferring a 'Mauriacois' style of narrating the self by reference to the books in one's library, to something more Rousseauistic and chez soi, the author appeals throughout to the w ork of Emmanuel Levinas in a programmatic move that shows how the task of mediation begins of necessity in the sphere of the already-mediated. The 'tightrope, window and text' of the article's subtitle, then represent three tropes around which the problematic of mediated identity is posed. The titular questions, finally, remain less answered than- in Kenneth Burke's signature form ulation- 'danced'.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Editorial

     

Capacity building in trauma therapy and trauma research in Bosnia-Herzegovina

When Bosnia-Herzegovina was thrown into war in the summer of 1991, one and a half million people lost their homes and were in flight. It was clear from the beginning that the extent of trauma would be enormous and evident for generations to come.     

Coping with stresses and strains in adolescence

This article focuses on the specific stresses and strains young people have to cope with. The author discusses content areas of life specific to adolescence. She then continues to describe some empirical research done on the variety of ways in which adolescents cope. The article points toward ways in which adults can help develop strength in adolescents to deal positively with stresses and strains.