Abstract : This second issue of 2016, the Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo, open access, n. 14, is focused on a main subject, namely the status of victim in so-called ‘natural disasters’, and its relation to social justice. The papers adopt an ethnographic and comparative perspective making quite interesting contributions.
This special dossier of Archivio Antropologico
Mediterraneo, titled On the Witness Stand: Environmental
Crises, Disasters and Social Justice, seeks
to inaugurate a space of anthropological reflection
in this sphere of inquiry in order to more closely
examine the symbolic, cultural and more broadly
social aspects of legal disputes linked to disasters
and to bring the ethnographic gaze to bear on the
settings in which these cases erupt. Unlike legal experts
who investigate the role of law in disasters, as
anthropologists our intention is to investigate what
happens with disasters when they are confronted
with law, focusing on the host of legal cases we propose
to term “disaster trials”. Of course it is not
our intention to downplay the importance of the
technical and procedural aspects of these cases. We
argue, however, that the most effective way of understanding
what is going on in the courtroom is to
analyze disaster trials from a variety of perspectives,
not least of which anthropological.
Résumé : Il numero con cui si chiude il 2016, il quattordicesimo dell’Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo nell’edizione open access, mette l’accento su un tema importante, lo status di vittima in relazione ai disastri cosiddetti naturali e il processo di costruzione di tale status dal punto di vista giuridico. La prospettiva è etnografica e comparativa, gli esiti delle ricerche interessanti.