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Underwater : Loss, Flood Insurance, and the Moral Economy of Climate Change in the United States
Author
Title
Underwater : Loss, Flood Insurance, and the Moral Economy of Climate Change in the United States / Rebecca Elliott.
ISBN
9780231548816
Publication
New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2021]
Copyright Notice Date
©2021
Physical Description
1 online resource
Local Notes
Access is available to the Yale community.
Notes
In English.
Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Columbia University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021 9783110739077
Access and use
Access restricted by licensing agreement.
Summary
Communities around the United States face the threat of being underwater. This is not only a matter of rising waters reaching the doorstep. It is also the threat of being financially underwater, owning assets worth less than the money borrowed to obtain them. Many areas around the country may become economically uninhabitable before they become physically unlivable.In Underwater, Rebecca Elliott explores how families, communities, and governments confront problems of loss as the climate changes. She offers the first in-depth account of the politics and social effects of the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which provides flood insurance protection for virtually all homes and small businesses that require it. In doing so, the NFIP turns the risk of flooding into an immediate economic reality, shaping who lives on the waterfront, on what terms, and at what cost.Drawing on archival, interview, ethnographic, and other documentary data, Elliott follows controversies over the NFIP from its establishment in the 1960s to the present, from local backlash over flood maps to Congressional debates over insurance reform. Though flood insurance is often portrayed as a rational solution for managing risk, it has ignited recurring fights over what is fair and valuable, what needs protecting and what should be let go, who deserves assistance and on what terms, and whose expectations of future losses are used to govern the present. An incisive and comprehensive consideration of the fundamental dilemmas of moral economy underlying insurance, Underwater sheds new light on how Americans cope with loss as the water rises.
Variant and related titles
De Gruyter University Press eBook pilot project 2021.
Format
Books / Online
Language
English
Added to Catalog
April 15, 2021
Series
Society and the Environment
Contents
Frontmatter
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TIMELINE OF EVENTS
INTRODUCTION Insurance and the Problem of Loss in a Climate-Changed United States
Chapter One TRANSFORMING THE MANAGEMENT OF LOSS The Origins of the National Flood Insurance Program
Chapter Two LOSING GROUND Values at Risk in an American Floodplain
Chapter Three VISIONS OF LOSS Knowing and Pricing Flood Risk
Chapter Four SHIFTING RESPONSIBILITIES FOR LOSS National Reform of Flood Insurance
Chapter Five FLOODPLAIN FUTURES Trajectories of Loss
CONCLUSION What Do We Have to Lose?
METHODOLOGICAL APPENDIX
NOTES
INDEX
Subjects
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