Within 24 months (2015–2017), Houston was struck by three “500-year flood” events, including Hurricane Harvey, the largest rainfall event in US history. In this article we explore how this wave of catastrophic flooding has impacted Houstonians’ emotional and epistemic attachments to their homes, neighborhoods, and city. In dialogue with the anthropology and science and technology studies literature on disasters and its focus on technopolitical regimes of disaster anticipation and risk mitigation, we offer an analysis of the “affective publics of slow catastrophe” that have emerged in Houston in response to a situation that experts and citizens alike fear represents a “new normal” in the context of climate change. We focus on three affective orientations around which floodies are clustering: diluvial individualism (a wounded retreat from public engagement in favor of highly individualized recovery strategies), hydraulic citizenship (an activist political subjectivity oriented around creating better infrastructures of water management), and amphibious acceptance (an emergent affective orientation oriented to learning to live with rather than against floodwater). Although we ultimately argue that amphibious acceptance’s time has not yet come in Houston, our fieldwork suggests that the repetitive experience of catastrophic flooding is changing the affective presence of water in Houston.

中文翻译：

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被淹的城市

在 24 个月（2015-2017 年）内，休斯顿遭受了三起“500 年洪水”事件，包括美国历史上最大的降雨事件哈维飓风。在本文中，我们探讨了这波灾难性洪水如何影响休斯顿人对家庭、社区和城市的情感和认知依恋。在与人类学和科学技术研究文献中关于灾害及其对灾害预测和风险缓解的技术政治制度的关注的对话中，我们对休斯顿出现的“缓慢灾难的情感公众”进行了分析，以应对以下情况：专家和公民的恐惧代表了气候变化背景下的“新常态”。我们关注洪水聚集的三个情感方向：洪水般的个人主义（从公众参与中受伤的撤退，以支持高度个性化的恢复战略），水力公民（一种积极的政治主体性，旨在建立更好的水资源管理基础设施）和两栖接受（一种新兴的情感取向，旨在学习与而不是而不是对抗洪水）。尽管我们最终认为休斯顿还没有接受水陆两用的时间，但我们的实地调查表明，灾难性洪水的重复经历正在改变休斯顿水的情感存在。和两栖接受（一种面向学习与洪水共处而不是对抗洪水的新兴情感取向）。尽管我们最终认为休斯顿还没有接受水陆两用的时间，但我们的实地调查表明，灾难性洪水的重复经历正在改变休斯顿水的情感存在。和两栖接受（一种面向学习与洪水共处而不是对抗洪水的新兴情感取向）。尽管我们最终认为休斯顿还没有接受水陆两用的时间，但我们的实地调查表明，灾难性洪水的重复经历正在改变休斯顿水的情感存在。