Witnessing the Disaster examines how histories, films, stories and novels, memorials and museums, and survivor testimonies involve problems of witnessing: how do those who survived, and those who lived long after the Holocaust, make clear to us what happened? How can we distinguish between more and less authentic accounts? Are histories more adequate descriptors of the horror than narrative? Does the susceptibility of survivor accounts to faulty memory and the vestiges of trauma make them any more or less useful as instruments of witness? And how do we authenticate their accuracy without giving those who deny the Holocaust a small but dangerous foothold? These essayists aim to move past the notion that the Holocaust as an event defies representation. They look at specific cases of Holocaust representation and consider their effect, their structure, their authenticity, and the kind of knowledge they produce. Taken together they consider the tension between history and memory, the vexed problem of eyewitness testimony and its status as evidence, and the ethical imperatives of Holocaust representation.

Disaster Songs as Intangible Memorials in Atlantic Canada draws on a collection of over 600 songs relating to Atlantic Canadian disasters from 1891 up until the present and describes the characteristics that define them as intangible memorials. The book demonstrates the relationship between vernacular memorials – informal memorials collectively and spontaneously created from a variety of objects by the general public – and disaster songs. The author identifies the features that define vernacular memorials and applies them to disaster songs: spontaneity, ephemerality, importance of place, motivations and meaning-making, content, as well as the role of media in inspiring and disseminating memorials and songs. Visit the companion website: www.disastersongs.ca.

Survival and Witness at Europe's Border focuses on one of the most mediatized migrant disasters in Europe. On October 3, 2013, an overcrowded fishing boat carrying Eritrean refugees caught fire near Lampedusa, Italy, where 368 people died. Karina Horsti shows with empathy and passion how this disaster produced a kaleidoscope of afterlives that continue to assume different forms depending on the position of the witness or survivors. Pasts and futures intersect in the present when people who were touched by the disaster engage with its memory and politics. Horsti underscores how the perspective of survival can envision a way forward from a horrific unsustainable present. Survival and Witness at Europe's Border develops the concept of survival to rethink border deaths beyond the structures and processes that produce the murderous border and constitute the focus of critical migration studies. It demonstrates how the process of survival transforms people and societies. Survival is productive, Horsti argues, shifting the focus in migration studies from apparatuses of control to emphasize the agency and subjectivity of refugees.

In hard-hitting accounts of Auschwitz, Bosnia, Palestine, and Hiroshima’s Ground Zero, comics have shown a stunning capacity to bear witness to trauma. Hillary Chute explores the ways graphic narratives by diverse artists, including Jacques Callot, Francisco Goya, Keiji Nakazawa, Art Spiegelman, and Joe Sacco, document the disasters of war.

This book presents a decade of advances in the psychological, biological and social responses to disasters, helping medics and leaders prepare and react.

It’s another normal day in Alaska, where the beauty of the rugged landscape makes the hardships of winter worth enduring. This Northern life is good, you think, when suddenly—without warning—your world is ROCKED! The ground sways beneath your feet with sickening force. You’ve just been caught in the second strongest earthquake in history! Witness to Disaster: Earthquakes uses eyewitness accounts and pulse-racing narrative to bring readers into the terrifying heart of an earthquake. The first chapter documents the 1964 Alaskan quake that shook Prince William Sound with a 9.2 magnitude force, and set off a tsunami that ultimately caused most of the deaths attributed to this frightening act of nature. The following chapters explore the deadly history of earthquakes and the seismic and geological science of this phenomenon. Readers learn how and why earthquakes occur, and what scientists can do to prevent casualties. The expansive back matter includes a list of sources to discover more about these fearsome catastrophes.

The world is wrought with risks that may harm people and cost lives. The news is riddled with reports of natural disasters (wildfires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes), industrial disasters (chemical spills, water and air pollution), and health pandemics (e.g., SARS, H1NI, COVID19). Effective risk communication is critical to mitigating harms. The body of research in this handbook reveals the challenges of communicating such messages, affirms the need for dialogue, embraces the role of instruction in proactively communicating risk, acknowledges the function of competing risk messages, investigates the growing influence of new media, and constantly reconsiders the ethical imperative for communicating recommendations for enhanced safety.

An overview of childhood traumatic exposures and their impact for health care providers - child and adolescent psychiatrists, general psychiatrists, other pediatric behavioral health providers and primary care clinicians - is presented. Most clinicians are unaware that children in the United States are exposed to trauma frequently, either as a single occurrence, or through repeated events. These exposures result in neurobiological, developmental and clinical sequelae that can undermine children's health and well-being. This issue describes the multiple types of traumatic exposures and their sequelae, methods of screening and assessment, and principles of effective prevention and clinical treatment. The volume highlights areas of particular relevance to children, such as natural disasters, war, domestic violence, school and community violence, sexual victimization, and complex trauma. Each is differentiated as a unique trauma, requiring trauma-informed systems of care to effectively meet the needs of the exposed population. Since traumatic exposure results in added risk to child well-being, the third section of the volume describes strategies for primary prevention (e.g. violence prevention) and risk mitigation (e.g. skill and resilience building strategies), as well as reviews evidence based treatments for trauma-induced clinical disorders.

The Care of the Witness explores the historical shifts in the crises of witnessing to genocide, war, and disaster and their contribution to nongovernmental politics.

During the last 100 years infant mortality rates have improved dramatically, yet even in a developed country such as Australia the physical health of infants varies greatly, despite advances in science and technology. It has now become clear that emotional and physical development is affected by many different variables. Not only must physical development and health support be adequate, but the presence of factors such as good-enough parenting, and the absence of others such as substance abuse and domestic violence, are now becoming better understood. So how best to work with families where infants are at risk? This is the substance of this book: to understand how to achieve improved outcomes for infants growing up in situations of risk, mainly in the area of the parents' mental health, but also in other related psychosocial circumstances that may impair parental functioning. These include migration, substance abuse, and infant hospitalisation. Throughout this book, the authors examine the effects of adverse life circumstances on infant and family and, in most cases, also describe assessments and interventions. Several chapters have been written by people personally affected by mental illness, or mental illness of a family member. This provides in-depth and often poignant understanding of the perspective of those living with the effects of such illnesses, and helps to expand our knowledge and skills to work with at-risk families.