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WHAT IS A DISASTER? 8

What Is a Disaster?

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Abstract

This paper gives an overview as well as an explanation of major concepts that have been featured in the reading of ‘What is a disaster?' By Perry & Quarantelli. The paper begins with a detailed introduction that gives a detailed background of the reading. In the paper, a clear explanation of disaster as explained in the reading has been given. Comparisons between stress and disaster and individual and collective stress have also been elaborated. A general summary of the reading is also provided for with a conclusion that summarizes how the research works could benefit future researchers also being provided.

What Is A Disaster? New Answers to Old Questions

‘What is a Disaster?’ by El. Quarantelli and Ronald W. Perry is a reading that focuses on the majority of major questions that arise in the field. The reading seeks to elaborate disaster meaning among other phenomena. In the recent years, there have been major rise of terrorism across the world, something that lives people wondering if terrorism should be classified as a disaster and if it is, what form of disaster. The authors also seek to find if other disasters that are not natural disasters like accidents of nuclear power plant, explosions, collapses, land subsidence and riots should fall under the category of disasters. They also expound on the differences of some of this situations.

In an effort to define disasters, the authors brought together 12 social scientists to represent eight disciplines as well as seven countries in sharing their vision and definition of the term ‘disaster.' In an effort to define the term, numerous suggestions are given as well as issues raised in regard to the link between practical and academic definitions, the outcome of aligning disaster types in varying manners, as well as the epistemologies on which hypothetical development should remain. Each author's views have been presented in work as well as the critique of discussants.

Though it is not easy to define a disaster, and their definitions greatly vary, this book generalizes disaster as uncertainty. The authors have also described disaster in terms of damage done rather than on its physical magnitude. For instance, The South Wales landslide was smaller and slow but managed to kill 144 people. This example is also a good example of a natural catastrophe disaster. According to Quarantelli and Ronald, disaster is not defined by events that are fixed or by relationships that are immutable; rather it is defined by social constructs that can easily change. Management of natural disaster is said to be under a structure that is risked by authoritarianism and secrecy. Nations are suffering not only from natural disasters; but they are also under risk of deliberate harm planned by people like terrorists (Ronald & Quarantelli, 2005).

Disaster view, whether from a mindset view or pluralistic view is achieved through converting events that are complex into figurative ones. This was stated by the authors of ‘what is a disaster?' as they described disaster as symbolism. According to the authors, disasters can be described as linguistics which is a suitable notation form or as parable or allegory, which is an action with a tale to tell or lesson to learn. For instance, there are instances where memorial books are created, whereby pictures of the disaster happenings are collected and publicized together as a book as a way of remembrance. Nevertheless, disaster is viewed very differently from a mass media point of view. It is unfortunate, states the authors that disaster according to mass media is a saga or story, a spectacle, or competition filled with society breakdown notions, anarchy spread, villainous malevolence and heroic leadership (Ronald & Quarantelli, 2005).

As the world continue evolving, the authors of this article state that technological, social and natural disasters also continue to be internationalized. Modern world calamity has also been attributed to geo-strategic laws, multinational poverty growth, and marginalization. For there to be successful resilience against disaster, then there must be socio-economic stability. According to this article, some of the global disasters have been contributed by vast expenditures to defend particular interests of powerful people. It is such moves that lead to tension and stress among people hence causing wars that could have been avoided hence disaster. A good example of a place where resilience has lacked causing a lot of vulnerability and disaster is Afghanistan. In some societies, especially the traditional societies, disaster has been defined as fatalism that is inspired religiously. This means they view disasters as punishments from a supreme being for their actions.

Individual stress has been described as personal situations that are caused by a person's mindset or perception (Ronald & Quarantelli, 2005). This article describes collective stress as situations that cause numerous society members to fail in receiving expected life conditions from the system. As a result of this deprivation, these society members ends up living under conditions that are defined as adequate or normal in terms of needs of humans. According to the authors, individual stress can be when a person goes through psychological stress after losing a family member or losing a job while a god example of collective stress is a people that are described as ‘inferior castes' or ‘inferior races.' Famines are also a good example of collective stress that in turn has led to death disaster where more than 75 million individuals lost their lives as a result of famine. International conflict is another collective stress that has also caused the death of millions of people in the last 35 years. Racial oppressions and slavery of native Americans is another example that has been provide for to portray collective stress that leads to disaster.

In chapter 11 of the reading, Arjen Boin who is a featured scholar writes a chapter called from crisis to disaster. According to him, the current crises are different in significant manners from the traditional natural ones witnessed years ago. Boin states that modern crises are more complex and are not controlled but time and space boundaries (Ronald & Quarantelli, 2005). The current crises are caused by deeper problems and are more prolonged that earlier. Crisis being social disruptions are a key cause of the disaster, considering that most of the authors in this reading have agreed that disaster includes a social disruption period which majorly is evaluated in terms of negativity. Though disaster and crisis are mostly connected in many fields, this reading indicates that these concepts have no relation. Crisis has been featured as unwanted, unprecedented, unexpected and almost unmanageable situations. Even though this description greatly fits a disaster, there is a difference since crises are immeasurable, and results are mostly unpredictable, unlike disasters which are easily accounted for.

This reading is about a collection of thoughts from various scholars on their thoughts on what disaster is. The reading provides major phenomena on the study of social science to many individuals. The study has also displayed a major connection between disaster, stress, and crisis. Indeed the reading is very informative to all types of people since it features general life happenings that people go through on a daily basis. This work is very crucial to future researchers since it has laid a good foundation on the topic. Bringing together different thoughts of scholars on one paper is a major idea that helps the reader as well as future researchers to compare thoughts on the topic of study hence easily drawing a conclusion on what really disaster is.

References

Ronald W. P. & Quarantelli, El. (2005). WHAT IS A DISASTER? New Answers to Old Questions. International Research Committee on Disasters.