Disaster, Security, and Governance

MAGG Spring 2014Bin Xu

Assistant ProfessorFlorida International University

Famine

• Misconception about famine (Chapter 1)

The common English use of the term: mass starvation unto death

Dramatic features

• A conventional template for famine reporting/images:1. People must be starving to death.2. Causes and solutions for the famine must be

simplified.3. The story must be told as a moral play with victims,

heroes, and villains. 4. There must be images.

• In other words, the famine story must be a simplified image of death with moral characters.

Famine

• Three components (Chapter 5, 6, 7): 1. Hunger2. Destitution3. Death

Hunger

• Failure of subsistence grain production: long-decline and region-wide failure

• The grain sold in the markets of Darfur only met no more than 10% of the region’s grain needs

• Discrepancy between purchasing power and purchases: 1) no access to grain; 2) they chose not to eat grain

Destitution

• Questions: if people did spend money on grain, what did they spend it on? Why?

• The affected kept their long-term priorities clear.

• They struggled to preserve their way of life.

Death

• Biggest causes: health crisis (diarrhea, measles) instead of starvation to death

• Hungerdestitution • Choosing to suffer from hunger in order

to preserve their way of life and future

Famine Relief

• Outsiders’ superficial conceptions and exaggeration of mortality rate

General Conclusions

• People’s principal aim during the famine was to preserve the basis of an acceptable future way of life, which involves not only material wellbeing but also social cohesion

Famine in North Korea

• Causes (introduction, Chapter 2-3)1. Limited production capacity of grains

(land, rural-urban ratio, and leaning toward heavy industry)

2. Pursuit of self-sufficiency3. Reliance on the Soviet Union and

China4. Cutting commercial grain import and

allocating the foreign exchange to military uses

Famine in North Korea

• Distribution of aids1. Breakdown of the Public Distribution

System (PDS)2. The tension between the NK

government and the international aids agencies over monitoring issues