Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

Consider the politics of wearing a
1.
Guevara t-shirt. Does something
Che
change if the person wearing it
important
not know who Che Guevara is?
does
Reflect on the politics of clothing that does
2.
carry an explicit political message,
not
as buying second-hand items to
such
your ecological footprint. To
minimize
There is the idea that not only are our
3.
and words political, so too are
actions
inaction and silence. Describe some
our
of when this is the case.
examples
who are cautious about the politics of
Those
have urged others to keep politics
everything
of sport or science, Halloween or superhero
out
to leave it out of the classroom and
movies,
from the dinner table. This approach can
away
from a belief that there are spheres of life
come
politics does not belong, which should be
where
from attempts to politicize them.
protected
means making something
“Politicizing”
politics. It is often also interpreted
about
the 2001 book Late Victorian Holocausts,
In
and political activist Mike Davis
historian
co-opting an event for political gain, as
as,
or misrepresentation in order to
manipulation
political points. It is condemned when the
score
or context in which it is done is seen as
timing
National tragedies or disasters are
inappropriate.
seen as the wrong context for politics.
usually
recent extreme weather events in view—
With
floods, wildfires and storms—some
droughts,
have suggested that political
commentators
is not a neutral stance. Maintaining
silence
would be a failure to hold policy-makers
silence
account for past and current decisions that
to
rainfall and earthquakes may not
Whereas
have a political dimension, disaster
inherently
response and recovery do.
preparedness,
closely at the aftermath of disasters we
Looking
how vulnerability intersects with racial and
see
inequalities. We also see how the frequency
class
intensity of extreme weather events already
and
communities that are on the frontlines
affects
the climate crisis. Some therefore argue that
of
disasters are not at all apolitical, but have
natural
bit of historical distance can help us gain
A
on this issue. Let’s consider
perspective
from the previous two centuries that
examples
reverberate today.
still
last quarter of the 19th century. These
the
the result of a sustained rise in
were
temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, a
surface
known today as El Niño, causing
phenomenon
across the tropics. In the final decades
droughts
the 19th century, the consequent famines
of
death tolls in the tens of millions of people
had
China, India and Brazil.
across
outsize human cost of these droughts,
The
argues, was not a natural disaster, but
Davis
created by European empires. El Niño
one
patterns were well known in those
weather
of the world, and over generations
parts
ways of being and knowing, expressed
local
I. Scope
I. Scope
For reflection
Check your politics
what extent is this action political?
affect the impact of the disasters.
in fact been depoliticized.
For discussion
Unnatural disasters
through Indigenous knowledge, infrastructure
examines a series of extreme climatic events in
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