Since the 1970s, human ecologists, geographers, Marxian political economists and others have insisted that there is no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. This assertion opened a space not only for exploring socioeconomic conditions that render marginalized populations vulnerable to natural hazards, but also for the formation of a field, the political ecology of hazards. A few political ecologists further interrogated the idea of a natural disaster, asking how different notions of 'the natural' circulate in post-disaster politics and with what effects. This article extends the latter approach by documenting how interconnected categories of 'nature' and 'state' were mutually constituted by narratives of politicians and elites after Chile's 2010 earthquake and tsunami. Drawing on media reports, we identify three distinct pairings of state/nature: (1) nature as manageable and the state as manager; (2) nature as out of control and the state as a police state; and (3) nature as financial opportunity and the state as prudential. Influenced by socioeconomic and historical factors, these state/nature pairings contradicted and reinforced one another in the disaster's aftermath and were deployed to reinforce top-down—rather than democratic—strategies of post-disaster reconstruction. This case offers an unusual approach to disaster politics by tracing how entwined and power-laden categories of state and nature condition the governance of disaster reconstruction processes.Key words: disaster, state, nature, socionature, political ecology of hazards, media disaster, earthquake, Latin America, Chile, 27F

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Popular accounts of the Halifax Explosion of 1917 have placed it in a resolutely nationalist context. But starting from the international ownerships and destinations of the ships that sparked it, the explosion was a transnational event. This article explores how people, money, and ideas crossed and recrossed the border. First, in-kind and monetary relief flowed quickly from the United States, Britain, and Newfoundland. Second, Halifax became a destination for a growing international community of experts in disaster response, as relief experts from New York, Boston, Winnipeg, and elsewhere in North America converged on the city. Finally, survivors used their transnational community of friends and relatives to build political power over the relief process. Migrants living in "the Boston States" created a transnational polity that pressured relief authorities to give more money to their kin still in Halifax. These transnational communities-of international experts and migrant families-helped create a Canada-US relationship from the bottom.When two ships collided in Halifax Harbor in December 1917, they sparked what has been called the largest manmade explosion before the atomic bomb, killing about 2000 people and leaving tens of thousands more maimed, homeless, or jobless. 1 The very fact of the explosion stemmed from Halifax's roles not just within Canada but also in the broader world: a French owned and crewed ship, en route from New York City to Brest, sailed to Halifax, under orders from the British Admiralty, where it collided with a Norwegian ship under contract to Belgian Relief. Subsequent events emphasize that the explosion was a transnational event. First, in-kind and monetary relief flowed quickly from the United States, Britain, and Newfoundland. Second, Halifax became a destination for a growing international community of experts in disaster response, as relief experts from New York, Boston, Winnipeg, and elsewhere in North America converged on the city. They brought with them a particular ideology of professionalized relief developed and spread by the American Red Cross. Finally, survivors used their transnational community of friends and relatives to build political power over the relief process. Migrants living in "the Boston States" created a transnational polity that pressured relief authorities to give more money to their kin still in Halifax. Nova Scotia's professional and lay connections were strongest with Massachusetts, and these transnational communities-of international experts and migrant families-spread money, ideas, and ideology across the border and helped create a Canada-US relationship from the bottom.

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The COVID-19 pandemic and the economic and social disruption that it precipitated have brought increased attention to the intersections of disaster studies and labor and working-class history. This historiographical essay lays out four places where disaster intersects with work: first, all disasters are workplace disasters for somebody; second, disasters create labor; third, disasters can reveal what always existed about labor, class relations, and working-class life; and fourth, disasters can remake living and working conditions by providing new grounds to contest them.

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