Abstract
This paper examines health and human condition in the contexts of persistent global
violence, epidemics, and environmental disasters. It is clear that the globalized world has
rendered these increasingly prevalent catastrophes a common global experience; eruption of
armed violence, outbreak of new epidemics, and devastating natural disaster are often
simultaneously viewed and immediately known around the world through global media
network. Although the escalating prevalence of violence, epidemics, and natural disaster has
become a cause for global concern, global consumption of tragic calamity, however, has
transformed devastating events and local suffering into mere visual spectacles consumable
by international audience. Global representation of catastrophic experiences tended to
overemphasize exciting and spectacular aspects of the events. Once the excitement subsided,
global media attention moved over to new and more dramatic episode of the next
catastrophes. I argue that if we are to be more capable of handling global crises and their
aftermath, we need a better knowledge of local circumstances and a more methodical
understanding of the situations from local perspectives. In other words, we need to localize
global crises in order to be more effective in maintaining preparedness, managing emergency
situation as well as delivering humanitarian aids and facilitating healing for those whose
lives were shattered by catastrophic devastations that have become an integral part of our
contemporary risk society.
Abstract
This paper examines health and human condition in the contexts of persistent global
violence, epidemics, and environmental disasters. It is clear that the globalized world has
rendered these increasingly prevalent catastrophes a common global experience; eruption of
armed violence, outbreak of new epidemics, and devastating natural disaster are often
simultaneously viewed and immediately known around the world through global media
network. Although the escalating prevalence of violence, epidemics, and natural disaster has
become a cause for global concern, global consumption of tragic calamity, however, has
transformed devastating events and local suffering into mere visual spectacles consumable
by international audience. Global representation of catastrophic experiences tended to
overemphasize exciting and spectacular aspects of the events. Once the excitement subsided,
global media attention moved over to new and more dramatic episode of the next
catastrophes. I argue that if we are to be more capable of handling global crises and their
aftermath, we need a better knowledge of local circumstances and a more methodical
understanding of the situations from local perspectives. In other words, we need to localize
global crises in order to be more effective in maintaining preparedness, managing emergency
situation as well as delivering humanitarian aids and facilitating healing for those whose
lives were shattered by catastrophic devastations that have become an integral part of our
contemporary risk society.
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