Approximations to the problematics of the disasters from three conceptions of the relation man - nature

Abstract

Disasters are a violent and massive change in the conditions of the human environment, hence the way as the human being has conceived his role historically in the world, his relationship with the transcendent, and his relationship with the environment have conditioned both our conception and our way to deal with disasters and urban risks. This paper resumes three time-spatial manners in which the notion of the disaster has been conceived: the first one associated with primitive societies, the second associated with theocentric or pre-modern societies, and the third one finally related to anthropocentric or modern societies. On these outlines are explored the conditions that in each case seem to have carved our way of facing urban risk and disaster