El incierto sentido del trabajo en la sociedad de riesgo global

Partiendo de los objetivos propuestos, el artículo pone de manifiesto la profunda crisis estructural en la que ha entrado el trabajo en la Posmodernidad. Esto ha supuesto, la pérdida de su seguridad en el contexto del cuestionamiento de la prosperidad de la economía, del Estado de Bienestar, del propio Estado y de la democracia. Cierto, el trabajo se presenta hoy con riesgo, precario, inseguro, incierto, desespacializado, fragmentado, acelerado, flexible, desregulado, informalizado, impactado por las nuevas tecnologías, “brasileñizado”, jerarquizado, desigual, individualizado y con el carácter corroído del trabajador. De esta forma, el trabajo se desvaloriza, se convierte en ilegible y pierde su sentido. Además, si se tiene en cuenta que los remedios puestos encima de la mesa en Occidente son claramente insuficientes y poco creativos, parece que nos encontremos ante el colapso o el final de una etapa, del trabajo, del propio capitalismo y del Estado social-liberal-democrático.

A first approach to earthquake damage estimation in Haiti: advices to minimize the seismic risk

This study is in the frame of the cooperative line that several Spanish Universities and other foreign partners started with the Haitian government in 2010. According to our studies (Benito et al. in An evaluation of seismic hazard in La Hispaniola, after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, 33rd General Assembly of the European Seismological Commission, Moscow, Russia, 2012) and recent scientific literature, the earthquake hazard in Haiti remains high (Calais et al. in Nat Geosci 3:794–799, 2010). In view of this, we wonder whether the country is currently ready to face another earthquake. In this sense, we estimated several damage scenarios in Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien associated to realistic possible major earthquakes. Our findings show that almost 50 % of the building stock of both cities would result uninhabitable due to structural damage. Around 80 % of the buildings in both cities have reinforced concrete structure with concrete block infill; however, the presence of masonry buildings becomes significant (between 25 and 45 % of the reinforced concrete buildings) in rural areas and informal settlements on the outskirts, where the estimated damage is higher. The influence of the soil effect on the damage spatial distribution is evident in both cities. We have found that the percentage of uninhabitable buildings in soft soil areas may be double the percentage obtained in nearby districts located in hard soil. These results reveal that a new seismic catastrophe of similar or even greater consequences than the 2010 Haiti earthquake might happen if the earthquake resilience is not improved in the country. Nowadays, the design of prevention actions and mitigation policies is the best instrument the society has to face seismic risk. In this sense, the results of this research might contribute to define measures oriented to earthquake risk reduction in Haiti, which should be a real priority for national and international institutions.