Caste Class and Gender in Multiple Disasters

The Indian subcontinent is prone to multiple disasters. The consequences for the poor in general are known. However little academic work exists to understand the specific ways multiple disasters affect women-headed households from different social castes and classes and what is required to reduce their vulnerability to multiple disastes? This book responds to this gap by documenting the experiences of women-headed households in Orissa and exploring possible ways forward. The super-cyclone in 1999floods in 2001 and 2003 and drought in 2002 form the basis of the case study. Strongly interdisciplinary the book draws upon several theoretical frameworks including disaster development sociological and anthropological approaches to caste class and gender.The study has two key theoretical concerns; vulnerability on one hand and the differential vulnerability of women-headed households on the other specifically in relation to their casteclass and gender. The analysis should be especially useful to policy-makers practitioners sociology of disasters gender and disasters and development studies.