Seismic Politics: Risk and Reconstruction after the 1960 Earthquake in Agadir, Morocco
A total of 15 papers were submitted for consideration for the 2018 Mullins Prize, representing a wide range of methods, topics, and fields of STS research. Papers were reviewed by all members of the prize committee, and were assessed according to four criteria: contributions to the STS field, depth of research, quality of writing, and ethical/political relevance. After an initial round of evaluation and scoring, the top four papers were reviewed again and discussed at length.
After long deliberation and a difficult decision between several truly excellent papers, the committee is pleased to announce Daniel Williford of the University of Michigan as this year’s Mullins Prize winner, for his paper Seismic Politics: Risk and Reconstruction after the 1960 Earthquake in Agadir, Morocco published in the October 2017 issue of Technology and Culture. Following the work of teams of Moroccan and international experts in the aftermath of the Agadir earthquake, Williford’s careful scholarship shows how seismographic data, eye-witness accounts, and observed patterns of destruction were mobilized to (re)allocate blame and risk in the wake of disaster: away from the legacies of colonial and early post-colonial rule, and towards a causal emphasis on natural forces and primitive building practices in the poorest neighborhoods most devastated by the event. In the process, Williford shows how risk itself was reconfigured as a technopolitical object – and how such efforts gave rise to projects aimed less at controlling nature than at redistributing vulnerability and authority among experts, administrators, and inhabitants.
2018 Mullins Prize Committee: Gloria Baigorrotegui, University of Santiago of Chile; Anita Say Chan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Steven J. Jackson, Cornell University. (all members of 4S Council)
I am honored to receive the 2018 Nicolas C. Mullins Award for my article, Seismic Politics: Risk and Reconstruction after the 1960 Earthquake in Agadir, Morocco, published in Technology and Culture. I greatly appreciate the feedback I received on this article from Gabrielle Hecht, Joshua Cole, Paul Edwards, Spencer Segalla, the editors of Technology and Culture, and members of the Science, Technology & Society Program and the History Department at the University of Michigan. I want to additionally thank the many individuals and institutions that have supported my continuing research project in Morocco including the Forum Izorane N’Agadir, the Dar Si Hmad association, the Initiative Urbaine in Casablanca, the Social Science Research Council, James A. Miller, Lahcen Roussafi, and Jamaa Baida. I am also grateful to the 4S community for providing a venue to present and discuss this evolving research project.
Daniel Williford is a PhD candidate in the History Department and a member of Science, Technology & Society graduate certificate program at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on the history of construction materials, technoscientific interventions into the built environment, urban infrastructures, and the politics of housing in colonial and post-colonial Morocco.