Community Social Capital as the Primary Basis for Resilience
Date
2005
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
Initially, I need to provide a set of assumptions. I am treating terrorism as producing what is conventionally called disaster. Understanding disaster, however, is seldom enhanced by focusing on the peculiarities of particular disaster agents, in this case, terrorism. I will look at previous research on diverse disaster agents on the basis of a rather universal social unit – the community. The community is the locus of the response to disaster and such social units have the social capital necessary to respond to disasters. I will argue that communities already exhibit considerable resilience in dealing with a variety of types of disaster and that we can learn how those capabilities might be enhanced. On the other hand, the implementation of certain types of policy relating to terrorism can have the effect of undercutting and dampening resilience.
Description
Updated Version of Preliminary Paper #327
Keywords
Disaster Recovery, Sociology