Broken Ground: Earthquakes, Colonialism and Nationalism in South Asia, c. 1900-1960

该项目将研究60年来南亚地震、殖民主义和民族主义之间的关系。它将回答减少灾害风险研究中的一个关键问题：自然灾害在多大程度上引起或催化政治和社会变革？虽然一些学者认识到，灾害的脆弱性是由经济边缘化等历史过程造成的，但由于减灾研究所用的时间相对较短（长达10年），因此无法理解其政治影响。这为对地震等发生在更遥远的过去的自然灾害进行历史研究提供了机会。我将对地震中断（或没有中断）的地方和国家政治发展以及地震的持续影响进行长期展望。因此，我将改变DRR关于灾害政治影响的辩论，同时对人类与极端自然过程的相互作用进行新的阐述，这是环境史上日益关注的问题。我将调查20世纪30年代初发生在大英帝国南亚的三次地震：1930年在缅甸的Pyu，1934年在比哈尔邦（印度）和尼泊尔，1935年在印度的Pu，1936年在印度的Pu，1937年在印度的Pu和奎达（印度，后来的巴基斯坦），1935年。每一次地震都是巨大而致命的，而且都发生在民族主义者对英国统治的抵抗日益高涨的时期。它们适合分析，因为它们具有广泛的区域政治背景，同时影响不同的自然和社会景观。对这三者的研究将有助于深入了解地震政治在时间和空间上的微妙发展，其知识影响比现有的地震史更广泛，现有的地震史孤立地处理单个地震。地震影响了谁（在哪里），影响到什么程度，为什么？2.地震和重建活动对地方、区域和“国家”层面的政治发展产生了什么影响？3.地震的物理影响（如破坏通讯基础设施或导致河流改道）在多大程度上改变了殖民统治的地理基础？该项目为帝国历史学家（殖民国家和民族主义），环境历史学家（景观机构）和非殖民化历史学家（从殖民到后殖民统治的过渡）提供了一个新的窗口。我将是第一个在历史灾难背景下解决政治变化的人，同时研究南亚人类与环境之间的持续相互作用。我将与PDRA一起对受影响地区进行纵向研究。时间表将从C扩展。1900年，C。1960年（当后殖民南亚的档案材料变得稀缺时），分析了地震双方约30年的时间。因此，我将把地震放在南亚反殖民主义民族主义和非殖民化增长的主要转变之列。我们将在英国、印度、尼泊尔、缅甸和巴基斯坦进行档案研究;制作地震破坏和重建活动的地图，突出灾害的空间政治。我们将通过几个主要出版物向学者传播我们的研究结果。我将在一家领先的大学出版社出版一本专著，并在一家领先的DRR期刊上发表一篇文章。PDRA将在一份主要的同行评审期刊上发表一篇文章。我将通过政策简报（针对政策制定者的研究结果的简短摘要）和伦敦的政策研讨会向非学术利益相关者传播研究成果。

This project will examine the relationship between earthquakes, colonialism and nationalism in South Asia over a 60-year period. It will answer a key question in disaster risk reduction (DRR) studies: how far do natural disasters cause or catalyse political and social change? While some scholars recognise that vulnerability to disasters results from historical processes such as economic marginalisation, attempts to understand their political impacts are hampered by the relatively short timeframes that DRR studies employs (up to ~10 years). This presents an opportunity for historical research on natural disasters such as earthquakes, which have occurred in the more distant past. I will develop long-term perspectives on the local and national political developments that earthquakes interrupted (or did not interrupt); and on earthquakes' continuing repercussions. I will therefore transform the DRR debate over disasters' political impacts while shedding new light on human interaction with extreme natural processes, a growing concern in environmental history.I will investigate three earthquakes that occurred during the early 1930s in the British Empire in South Asia: in Pyu, Burma (Myanmar), 1930; in Bihar (India) and Nepal, 1934; and Quetta (India, later Pakistan), 1935. Each earthquake was large and deadly, and all took place during a time of increasing nationalist resistance to British rule. They are apt for analysis because they shared a broad regional political context, while affecting different physical and social landscapes. A study of the three together will yield insights into the nuanced temporal and spatial development of earthquake politics, with broader intellectual ramifications than existing earthquake histories, which address single earthquakes in isolation.I will ask three linked research questions:1. Whom (and where) did the earthquakes affect, to what extent, and why?2. What impacts did the earthquakes, and reconstruction activities, have on political developments at local, regional and 'national' scales?3. To what extent did the physical effects of the earthquakes (such as destruction of communications infrastructure or causing rivers to change course) alter the geographical basis of colonial rule?The project provides a new window onto important issues for imperial historians (the colonial state and nationalism), environmental historians (landscapes' agency), and decolonisation historians (transitions from colonial to postcolonial rule). I will be the first to address political change in historical disaster contexts while examining ongoing interactions between humans and the environment in South Asia.I, with the PDRA, will conduct longitudinal studies of the affected regions. The timeframe will extend from c. 1900 to c. 1960 (when archival material for postcolonial South Asia becomes scarce), analysing a ~30-year period each side of the earthquakes. I will therefore place the earthquakes among the major transitions that accompanied the growth of anticolonial nationalism and decolonisation in South Asia. We will conduct archival research in the UK, India, Nepal, Myanmar and Pakistan; and produce maps of earthquake damage and reconstruction activities, highlighting the disasters' spatial politics.We will disseminate our findings to scholars through several major publications. I will publish a monograph with a leading university press and an article in a leading DRR journal. The PDRA will publish an article in a major peer-reviewed journal. I will disseminate the research to non-academic stakeholders through a Policy Brief (a short summary of the research findings, aimed at policy makers) and a Policy Workshop in London.