Conceptualizing Disaster in Ways Productive for Social Science Research
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Date
1989
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
Description
Over the course of the next several days, we will have the opportunity to conceptualize a research agenda which will be appropriate for a region as well as significant for the social sciences. This is an unusual opportunity since research problems for the social scientists are usually a part of some one else's agenda, either governmental policy agencies or by implications derived from other scientific endeavors. For example, meteorological agencies have often asked the question "Why do people ignore our warnings?" but are seldom content to listen to distinctions which point out the difference between meteorological forecasts and warning messages. Nor do they formulate the question "How can meteorological agencies issue messages in such a way in which people will give attention to them?" In other agendas, questions are often phrased so tat they imply technological answers, rather than "social" solutions. For
example, the question of "what can be done to prevent flooding?" usually evokes answers about building more dams and levees when part of the answer might emerge if the question were raised "what is the most efficient and rational use a society can made of flood prone lands?"
Keywords
risk, social science, community disasters, organizations