The Epistemology Of Disasters And Social Change

An earthquake in Mexico City spurs the rise of democracy. A plague in South Africa lays the foundations for apartheid. A terrorist attack on New York City triggers massive shifts in global security. A global pandemic sets the stage for the largest civil rights protests in generations. Beyond their physical impact, disasters assault our certainty and shape a narrow space to alter the structure of what we believe. That change can lead us toward disinformation and authoritarianism, or it can lead us toward greater solidarity and human rights. It all depends on the choices we make as we live through crisis; on how, in fact, we choose to know each other. The Epistemology of Disasters and Social Change draws on social epistemology, disaster sociology, psychology and feminist philosophy to investigate how disasters function as cauldrons of social transformation, for good and ill. We wrestle with how disasters change us, moment by moment, and provide new strategies to help these tragic eventsproduce positive social transformation, leading to a brighter future during this century of crisis.

Disagreeing despite the Data: The Destruction of the Factual Commons examines the pressing problem of factual disagreement between social groups, suggesting that the belief segregation underway in the United States may be irreversible. David Apgar draws on the work of twentieth-century philosophers of science and language—especially Popper, Wittgenstein, and Davidson—to identify three requirements for factual agreement to be possible at all: a pervasive habit of checking assumptions, densely connected communities, and projects that straddle those communities. The growing refusal to test assumptions and individual isolation can be remedied by critical thinking and community building. Factual agreement between groups is impossible without shared projects or other meaningful interaction, however, and a large part of American society has insulated itself from the rest. Without shared projects, communities lose the ability to tell whether they agree or not regardless of the words they use. Disagreeing despite the Data looks at the destructive effects of belief segregation with similar roots in several dissimilar developing countries on a path wide enough for richer ones, like the United States, to follow.

In the wake of disruption and disaster, cooperation among members of a collective is refocused on matters of status, membership and the formation of coalitions. In an important contribution to sociological theory, Hendrik Vollmer emphasizes the processes through which disruptions not only affect, but also transform social order. Drawing on Erving Goffman's understanding of framing and the interaction order, as well as from a range of insights from contemporary sociological theory and ethnographic, historical and organizational research, Vollmer addresses the dynamics of disaster and disaster response within the framework of a general theory of disruption and social order. It is proposed that the adjustment of cooperation in favour of coalition-forming strategies is robust in both informal and organized social settings and transcends the 'micro' and 'macro' approaches currently favoured by theorists. Offering a systematic sociological analysis of the impact of disruptiveness, this book investigates how punctuated cooperation precipitates social change.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the arguments relating to the extent and manner to which social influences enable epistemic agents.

The term 'natural disaster' is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes or floods. However, the phrase 'natural disaster' suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth. At Risk questions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed. The updated new edition confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream 'development'. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant 'root causes' to 'unsafe conditions' in a 'progression of vulnerability'. The other uses the concepts of 'access' and 'livelihood' to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. Examining key natural events and incorporating strategies to create a safer world, this revised edition is an important resource for those involved in the fields of environment and development studies.

This book examines the social epistemological issues relating to technology for the sake of providing insights toward public self-awareness and informing matters of education, policy, and public deliberation.

Find the answers to disaster and emergency management research questions with Disaster and Emergency Management Methods. Written to engage students and to provide a flexible foundation for instructors and practitioners, this interdisciplinary textbook provides a holistic understanding of disaster and emergency management research methods used in the field. The disaster and emergency management contexts have a host of challenges that affect the research process that subsequently shape methodological approaches, data quality, analysis and inferences. In this book, readers are presented with the considerations that must be made before engaging in the research process, in addition to a variety of qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches that are currently being used in the discipline. Current, relevant, and fascinating real-world applications provide a window into how each approach is being applied in the field. Disaster and Emergency Management Methods serves as an effective way to empower readers to approach their own study of disaster and emergency management research methods with confidence.

Revealing the role of discrimination in disasters challenges received wisdom about who is a refugee.