by Malte Thießen
A workshop with Nicolai Hannig from the LMU Munich on dealing with natural hazards in the 19th and 20th centuries was a twofold borderline experience: on the one hand, our discussion was about boundaries between nature and civilisation, between exceptional circumstances and normality and between state and citizen, which were negotiated in dealing with natural hazards. Preventing avalanches, floods and storms was therefore more than just a preventative or insurance measure. Since the 18th century, it has also repeatedly given people the opportunity to determine and change social security and social risks.
And the workshop was also a borderline experience in a second respect: in the interdisciplinary discussion, we quickly came up against our own specialist boundaries and were forced to translate specialist terms, narratives and models for other disciplines in order to advance the joint exchange.
In this sense too, the workshop was both an exciting and productive endeavour: as an impulse to reflect on and question seemingly self-evident concepts and to expand them in interdisciplinary discussions.
Malte Thießen, Dr phil. habil., is Director of the LWL Institute for Westphalian Regional History in Münster.
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