Coping with Seismic Vulnerability: Small Manufacturing Firms in Western Athens

Author: Sapountzaki, Kalliopi

Source: Disasters, Volume 29, Number 2, June 2005 , pp. 195-212(18)

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Abstract:

This paper attempts to contribute to international discourse on the responsibility of macro structures (economic and political) and private agencies for the production and distribution of vulnerability. It does so by focusing on an individual economic entity, small manufacturing firms (SMFs), in a specific location, western Athens, Greece. By evaluating the losses that SMFs sustained in the earthquake of 7 September 1999, the paper points to variations in vulnerability levels among such firms and highlights the ‘sources’ of vulnerability they confront. Furthermore, the SMF recovery cycle is systematically monitored in parallel with relevant public policies and state reactions to private recovery methods. The analysis illustrates processes that externalise recovery costs, alter the relationship between physical and socio-economic vulnerability and shift the vulnerability load from macro structures to individual agencies or vice versa. It is based on two methodological approaches: the division of vulnerability into three constituent components (exposure, resistance and resilience); and the conceptual split between producers and carriers of vulnerability.

Keywords: continuity planning; earthquakes; exposure; manufacturing firms; recovery; resilience; resistance; small businesses; vulnerability

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0361-3666.2005.00280.x

Affiliations: 1: 1Department of Geography, Harokopion University of Athens

Publication date: 2005-06-01