Article S7.7 Researching Social Response to Natural Disasters Seminar Leader: Paul R. Greenough Department of History, The University of Iowa, USA paul-greenough[at]uiowa.edu A natural disaster is the consequence or effect of a hazardous event, occurring when a natural phenomenon (such as a volcanic eruption, earthquake, or landslide) and human activities become enmeshed. Human vulnerability, caused by the lack of appropriate emergency management leads to damages or fatalities. A disaster is a social disruption that can occur at any level: individual, community, or state (Kreps, 1989). In areas where there are no human interests, natural phenomena do not constitute hazards, nor do they result in natural disasters. This understanding is crystallised in the formulation: “disasters occur when natural hazards affect vulnerable people” (Wisner, Blaikie, Cannon, & Davis, 2003, p. 50). Natural Disasters had been affecting the world since the ancient times but the scale of damage has been larger in the recent disasters. The following incidents show the intensity of damage due to natural disasters in South Asia: 1970: Bhola Cyclone--Estimated 300,000-500,000 dead in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) 2001: Gujarat Earthquake--More than 20,000 dead in Bhuj, Gujarat, India 2004: Indian Ocean Earthquake/Tsunami--Estimated 16,000 dead in India; 40,000 dead in Sri Lanka 2005: Kashmir Earthquake--More than 80,000 dead in India and Pakistan Natural disaster studies do not usually include industrial disasters such as the Chernobyl meltdown (Ukraine, Soviet Union, April 26, 1986) and Bhopal gas explosion (Madhya Pradesh, India, December 2-3, 1984); but the impact is comparable. With the passage of time, there has been observable change in the way society responds to natural disasters. Research on social response to natural disasters is full of challenges. Since natural disasters are generally unpredictable, one rarely knows when or where the next research site is going to surface. Unless the natural disaster is recurring periodically or it is so large scale that research would be long range and ongoing, there is usually a great haste in getting to the field (Drabek, 1970). Further, a large variety of actors/agents, at multiple layers of social organisation--local, regional, national, and international--are involved in responding to natural disasters. As a result, it becomes very difficult to collect data from respondents in such multilayered and dynamic contexts by using traditional methods such as questionnaire survey and interview. Also, the resulting chaos among the affected people and the complexity in identifying relevant variables are further hurdles in conducting traditional social research under such circumstances. However, failure to collect data immediately may greatly reduce its validity, which may defeat the very purpose of research. One approach to conducting research under such circumstances is the Disaster Response Study approach, which uses interpretive narratives (i.e., thick descriptions) to grasp the study context. The objective is to capture the key dimensions of a complex and dynamic phenomenon as spontaneously as possible. Two kinds of queries are used to generate the required data: (a) interpretive queries: Why does disaster affect some persons/places more than others? What/Who is responsible for the disaster? Which losses are bearable and which are unbearable? (b) narrative queries: How do the affectees cope with their traumas and losses? Who helps whom before and after external relief arrives? Who are the victims before and after external relief arrives? When does recovery begin; when does it end? Where does a disaster fit within a long chronology of disasters? The following concepts are part of the key vocabulary of this research approach: vulnerability, context, resilience, and agency. Vulnerability refers to the absence of socio-ecological defences, resources, and capacities that can offer protection from the shocks of nature. Vulnerability is largely a product of human arrangements and activities. Vulnerability arises in historical contexts, characterised by: (a) the existing social inequities of life-chances and (b) cumulative local experience of similar natural disasters. Resilience is the capacity of rooted social-ecological systems to absorb shocks such as hurricanes or floods, so as to retain essential structures, processes, and feedbacks. Resilience is evidence of collective social learning; it has a temporal component based on previous disaster experiences. Agency refers to the ability of persons, groups, and institutions to alter their circumstances by struggling against constraints. Formation of a spontaneous search and rescue team can be an expression of agency; marauding gangs engaged in desperate crimes can also be an expression of agency. Agency can be of the following types: (a) collective agency (e.g., group action in realising recovery, beginning with the family) and (b) complex agency (e.g., complex combinations of local relief effort and external aid). Helplessness and victimisation are notions contrary to agency. Disaster response studies have revealed that external aid can have long-term negative effects on the society or community that is presumably the beneficiary of such aid. For example, a study of the international response to the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 came to the following conclusions:
These observations are also supported by Captier (2005): “A victim of its own success, humanitarian action has become a political, economic and social stake in countries in crisis as well as in our own ‘developed’ societies.” And there are “those who want to make humanitarian action into a simple tool at the disposal of politics or of military objectives in the war against terrorism or those who see humanitarian action only through the prism of technical standards and cost-benefit ratios.” This poses fundamental questions to the researcher who wishes to study social response to natural disasters. What ought to be the goal of such research? What ought to be the methods of such research? And, what ought to be criteria of quality to evaluate such research? Such research could aim at holding up a mirror to everyone involved in disaster and disaster response to enable them to see the meaning of their actions and promote critical reflection. Alternatively, such research could identify processes that reduce vulnerability and promote resilience, and make those processes widely available to communities at risk. References
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