Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
together, they form the “mediance” of an individual: the way in which
a human being gives meaning to what happens to him. In this
meaning, for Berque, there is an emergence of meaning in the measure
where an individual views his surroundings at the same time as a risk,
a pleasure, an impediment and a resource. These categories together
form a “geogram” [BER 00], which describes the ensemble of the
understandings assumed with regard to a thing or an event. In other
words, by working the depiction of a “happening” according to basic
“ecumenous motives”, we produce its “geogram”.
This brings us back to take into consideration all the values
(pessimal
1
and optimal) linked to the material impact of the disaster
(destruction and production) just as much as its immaterial impact
(symbols and subjets). It is a question of placing two couplings in
relation to one another: material-immaterial and optimal-pessimal.
Table 7.3 provides a simple overview of them [MOR 13].
Disaster
Optimal
Pessimal
Material
Resource
Constraint
Immaterial
Pleasure
Risk
Table 7.3.
Geogram of a disaster as a clutch of structural material-immaterial
coupling and systemic optimal-pessimal coupling
In the above table, the elements are read as follows:
- a resource is something that enables the physical and organic
(that is to say material) milieu of an individual to be maintained and
promoted;
- an impediment is something that has an effect and is physically
present (it is material) which impedes the individual's relationship to
what surrounds him/her in such a way that he/she cannot engage with
the latter in an optimal manner;
1 The term “pessimal” is borrowed from J. Von Uexküll [UEX 56], and means the
opposite of optimal. Thus, the “optimal conditions” mean a milieu favorable to
development (of a life form, of society, of existence, etc.). On the contrary,
“pessimal conditions” mean a milieu harmful to development (of a life form, of
society, of existence, etc.).
Search WWH ::
Custom Search