Memory breakdown and increasing vulnerability to disasters

Written in the midst of the Covid-19 epidemic, the content of this article was inevitably shaped by this catastrophe, which served as a brutal reminder of the extent to which lack of anticipation and forgetting the past can lead to unpreparedness and jeopardize a rapid recovery. Often presented by the authorities, experts and the media as "unprecedented" and therefore unpredictable, this crisis is a masterly illustration of the growing vulnerability of our societies caused by a generalized breakdown in memory. Using the experience of the past as a sieve, and from a perspective specific to the historical sciences, this work aims to highlight the resulting exposure of our contemporaries to risk, and the limits of the word of the contemporary expert, whether scientist, engineer or political decision-maker. In this way, it is possible to understand at what point these words become hegemonic and legitimate in the face of short-term budgetary and political diktats, to the point of eradicating the memory of a disaster that had, until then, been preserved in diverse and original forms. We also need to assess these memorial expressions in order to judge their relevance and, possibly, their integration into more sustainable adaptation strategies for the future, if only in the form of series of events historically demonstrated and known in current models and prevention plans.

The aim of this article is therefore to provide new avenues for reflection, based as they are on past experience and transdisciplinarity, to reduce the vulnerabilities that engineers, planners, entrepreneurs, insurers and political leaders are facing or will face in the future when it comes to risk. The historical approach to disasters is conceived here as a tool for reinforcing the modes of governance of human societies and companies induced by the globalization process of the last twenty years, by promoting more efficient coordination of collective action, because it is rooted in the long term and respects diversity.