Design by disasters: seismic architecture and cultural adaptation to earthquakes

This chapter begins with a brief description of water and flood management in Bangladesh. Reviews of flood management in Bangladesh are given elsewhere allowing this analysis to focus on the state of efforts to legitimise local knowledge and participatory decision making, Crook believes to be key tenets of the cultural critique. To do this, he analyse the ways in which decision makers interpret, value and deploy local and indigenous knowledge when discussing flood management in Bangladesh. Discussions with decision makers in Bangladesh and those who contribute to flood management show that local people, local knowledge and participation have become central to the flood management discourse. The government has abandoned the practice and now every year there is flooding, not because…