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Everything in its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood.
... Most disaster scholars recognized a disaster as an 'event' or 'state' which exceeds the capabilities of natural processes (Quarantelli, 1988;Quarantelli, 2000;Stark & Erickson 1978;Dorasamy et al., 2013). "Disaster is a crisis situation that far exceeds the capabilities" defined Quarentelly (1988;p. ...
... Further, Quarentelly (1998) argued that a disaster is an event in which emergency organizations need to expand and extend themselves to cope the vulnerabilities rose. Stark and Erickson (1978) illustrated that a disastrous event has a distinct beginning and a distinct end, with an extraordinary freak of nature, a perversion of the natural processes of life. On the other hand, scholars commonly recognized two inherent properties of a disaster: first, does a great deal of harm; second, it is sudden, unexpected and acute (Stark & Erickson, 1978;Dorasamy et al., 2013). ...
... Stark and Erickson (1978) illustrated that a disastrous event has a distinct beginning and a distinct end, with an extraordinary freak of nature, a perversion of the natural processes of life. On the other hand, scholars commonly recognized two inherent properties of a disaster: first, does a great deal of harm; second, it is sudden, unexpected and acute (Stark & Erickson, 1978;Dorasamy et al., 2013). Dorasamy et al. (2013) recognized following attributes of a disaster: sudden occurrence, the requirement for quick reactions, nature of uncertainty, nature of stress, threaten the reputation of the organization, and escalation of intensity. ...
Abstract
The contemporary generation of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) scholars is increasingly contributing to the ongoing debate of applying resilience into theory and practice. Nevertheless, theoretical foundations of resilience in DRM context are not yet sufficiently validated in empirical grounds. This paper produces a literature review in DRM and the concept of Resilience and recognizes unanswered questions in the body of disaster management and resilience literature. The paper proposes several future research implications based on several theoretical and empirical research gaps identified. In particular, how to achieve disaster resilience in a multi-stakeholder environment, and how to frame the concept of bounce forward requires further research. This paper also illuminates on research gaps unique to Sri Lanka to add further value to the context.
... À ce titre, il se pourrait fort bien que les travailleurs sur le terrain se rendent compte que la situation n'est pas si grave que peuvent le penser les observateurs, les sinistrés ou les informateurs publics, qu'ils peuvent parvenir à contrôler la situation et que le vrai désastre se passe dans les bureaux, pas sur le terrain ; d'où peut-être le plus grand stress vécu par les employés de deuxième ligne. Ce qui ne viendrait que confirmer plusieurs études où l'on parle d'un deuxième désastre, parfois plus déterminant que le premier, créé par les organisations répondant aux demandes sur le terrain Harshbarger, 1973 ;Zarle et al., 1974 ;Taylor et al., 1976 ;Erickson, 1976 ;Logue et al., 1981 ;Green, 1982 ;Kroll-Smith et Couch, 1990). ...
... On peut facilement provoquer un deuxième désastre par notre façon d'intervenir, comme nous le notions plus haut. L'acharnement thérapeutique qui s'éloigne des véritables besoins des sinistrés, le peu de considérations pour les intervenants de première ligne de la part des médias, des politiciens, des curieux et autres experts de tout acabit, ainsi que de personnes ou donateurs bien intentionnés mais ignorants de ce qui se vit et se passe dans le milieu, peuvent constituer de véritables obstacles à l'efficacité et à l'efficience de l'intervention de première ligne (Erickson et Kau, 1976 ;Logue et al., 1981 ;Green et Bonnie, 1982 ;Golec, 1983 ;De Ville de Goyet, 1999). ...
... Some argue that we can speak of " collective " or " cultural " trauma that is both collective and psychological, which dissolves the distinction I make between structural and individual processes (e.g. Alexander et al. 2004; Erickson 1976; Neal 2005; Olick 1999: 343-5; Stamm et al. 2004). We need to be careful with a concept like " collective trauma, " however. ...
... In fact, culture is central to the emergence and course of trauma among individuals (e.g. Chemtob 1996; Davis 2006; Erickson 1976; Kleber et al. 1995; Micale and Lerner 2001; Parson 1985). sort of an ethical avant garde. ...
Traumatic memories have become central to politics in the West and other
Westernized societies. Some intellectuals believe that the attentiveness
to victimhood has dire consequences. Most commonly, scholars worry
that the focus on victimhood undermines moral accountability, political
community, and future-oriented politics. While there is plenty support for
those concerns, evidence also suggests the opposite. When we take into
account expressions of regret, for example, the attentiveness to victimhood,
it appears, leads to increased moral accountability and political solidarity
and a revised vision for the future. However, people must be careful how
they attend to victims, or the politics of victimhood will obstruct individual
therapy, persisting suffering rather than mediating it.
... Some argue that we can speak of " collective " or " cultural " trauma that is both collective and psychological, which dissolves the distinction I make between structural and individual processes (e.g. Alexander et al. 2004; Erickson 1976; Neal 2005; Olick 1999: 343-5; Stamm et al. 2004). We need to be careful with a concept like " collective trauma, " however. ...
... In fact, culture is central to the emergence and course of trauma among individuals (e.g. Chemtob 1996; Davis 2006; Erickson 1976; Kleber et al. 1995; Micale and Lerner 2001; Parson 1985). sort of an ethical avant garde. ...
In our age, traumas do not fade easily. The memory of victimhood has become a central element of culture and politics in the West. Some intellectuals believe that our attentiveness to victimhood has dire consequences. Three common concerns are that the focus on victimhood undermines moral accountability, political community, and future-oriented politics. While there is plenty evidence to support those concerns, evidence, especially when we take into account expressions of regret through apologies and reparations, also suggests that our attentiveness with victimhood strengthens moral accountability, creates political solidarities, and provides a new vision for the future. However, we have to be careful how we attend to victims or we will persist suffering rather than mediate it.
... Collective traumas are events that disrupt daily life for an entire community and include natural and human-caused disasters (Erickson 1976;Silver et al. 2013), as well as sociopolitical oppressions (Comas-Díaz et al. 2019;Kelly et al. 2020). These shared traumatic events often deteriorate the sense of safety and security of those affected (Silver et al. 2013) and have negative psychological consequences (Goldmann et al. 2014;Luszczynska et al. 2009). ...
Psychological distress and coping strategies employed during collective trauma events may vary for theists and atheists, as well as others along the (non)religious spectrum. The present study explored these differences via data collected from a US-based sample during the COVID-19 pandemic. Statistical models suggested relationships between maladaptive coping and distress for all participants and potential differences in coping and, in turn, distress between participants high and low in institutional religiousness and individual spirituality. Additionally, all participants, though especially nonreligious participants, appeared less able to engage in adaptive emotion-focused coping strategies. Implications for future research are provided.
... In Appalachia, criminologists and sociologists have also examined waste creation and deposition and how it underscores inequality in the region. The most famous example is Kai Erickson's examination of the West Virginia hamlet of Buffalo Creek, which was flooded with over 130 million gallons of toxic coal waste when a coal impoundment failed, killing 125 people, and making another 4,000 homeless (Erickson, 1976). Forty years later Pierce Greenberg took a different approach to the issue of coal waste, finding that those living near such impoundments were more likely to be poor and unemployed (Greenberg, 2016). ...
While prisons are often seen as locally undesirable land uses (LULUs), nuance and historical analysis is needed to understand why this is not the case for all places, as well as why many of these “sites of acceptance” are layered upon legacies of resource extraction and environmental degradation. Central Appalachia has seen a shift from coalfields to prisonfields in the past three decades as policymakers turn to the incarceration industry to stem unemployment and depopulation as coal mining declines. Using the conceptual lens of trash, I contend that the literal trashing of the ecosystems of this region has been fostered by the metaphorical representation of Appalachians as “white trash.” In turn, the space is now viewed as a logical location for the deposition of “societal castoffs” in the form of prisoners.
... The study of community is one of the fundamental topics of social inquiry (Cope et al. 2015;Erickson 1978) and is attuned to investigating the "holistic nature of everyday social interaction articulated in a locality" (Brown et al. 2000:434). That said, community sociologists generally acknowledge geographic communities as multifaceted social locations that include a multiplicity of characteristics that emerge from unique human beings' grouping at unique points in time and space. ...
This study examines how disassociation with a majority religion influences subjective perception of community desirability in rural communities. Current community literature shows that religious affiliation identification can influence community sentiment, while other studies suggest the possibility of either mixed or inconclusive results. To further clarify the relationship between religious affiliation and community desirability, we draw upon data from the 2017 Rural Utah Community Study. We find that even when accounting for the length of residence, age, and perception of local services, a resident’s religious affiliation continues to be associated with community desirability. These findings have potential implications for understanding other communities with a large, singular religious presence.
... For the Darjeeling Himalayas, and for other urbanizing regions facing significant threats from environmental hazards, a fundamental question about disasters and development has to do with the justice of these threats. 2 Many accounts of environmental justice use the aftermath of specific disasters, with the benefit of hindsight and the inequalities of the risk landscape realized, as their primary source of evidence (e.g., Allen, 2007;Bullard and Wright, 2009;Erickson, 1978). In this article, we argue that it is equally important to examine the risk that accumulates in the built environment before disasters occur, to understand the justice of the urban development processes by which that risk is created and shared. ...
The Darjeeling Himalayas is a rapidly urbanizing region in northeastern India, increasingly exposed to natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and changing patterns of precipitation due to climate change. This paper explores the complex roots of disaster risk creation in the region through the lens of disaster justice, asking: by what standards should we consider whether disaster risk is justly created or shared? And how might urban development professionals account for increasing vulnerabilities to natural hazards and climate change in their everyday work? To answer these questions, we develop a framework for disaster justice derived from the literature on procedural equity that considers the franchise, scope, and authenticity of development processes. We apply this framework in the Darjeeling Himalayas using the construction of multi-storied concrete buildings as our object of analysis and based on data collected from interviews, plans and policy documents, and participant observation. This case study shows that a standard framework of justice is a useful starting point for examining development processes and their contribution to disaster risk, but also illuminates how considerations of disaster justice are unique to particular places. By using such a framework, modified to fit particular contexts and circumstances, we believe that urban development professionals can establish a more transparent and informed way to evaluate the justice of their work.
... Відповідно, колективну травму трактують як травму багатьох, сукупність індивідуальних травм. Поворотним пунктом у розумінні психоcоціальної травми стала праця К. Еріксона, сина відомого психолога Е. Еріксона, «Все на своєму шляху» (1976 р.) [3]. Еріксон-молодший першим розрізнив на понятійному рівні колективну та індивідуальну травми і зосередив увагу на властивостях травми, що виникають насамперед стосовно спільнот. ...
The article addressed the issues of discourse trauma. The author analyses the existing approaches to its definition. Determined ways to apply theoretical and methodological provisions of the conception of cultural trauma to the analysis of situation in Ukraine (2013-2014). Proposed coping strategies after traumatic events at the individual, collective and societal levels. =============================================================================================================================
У статті розглянуто питання, пов’язані з проблемним полем дискурсу травми. З цією метою висвітлені основні наукові підходи до розуміння травми. Визначаються шляхи застосування теоретико-методологічних положень концепції культурної травми до аналізу подій кінця 2013-2014 рр. в Україні. Запропоновано форми опанування травми на індивідуальному, колективному та соцієтальному рівнях.
... The important factors include, but are not limited to: 1. 'The Penn Face' and Social Media – in which students feel a need to project a curated, perfect image regardless of personal hardships i. Reticence to show any signs of weakness or vulnerability b. Stressors, especially related to academia, jobs, and the social scene 2. The ways that students present themselves with regard to mental health exist, in the tradition of Kai Erickson's " Everything In Its Path " (Erickson 1976), along axes of variation – tensions between two allegedly opposition poles: a. Causality: Tension between problematizing/vilifying the Penn culture in regard to treatment of mental health issues and acknowledging a more complicated notion of causality of mental health b. Interpersonal connectedness: Tension between personal vulnerability versus a desire to have it all together (or to appear as though one does) c. ...
This paper explores the social and cultural factors that influence how students present themselves publicly and privately in terms of mental health at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). It represents a case study of a specific time and place – this particular university during the spring of 2016. Recently, Penn culture has been criticized for causing or exacerbating issues related to students’ mental health in the wake of renewed fervor and passion for issues of student mental wellness. In this study I heard about the idea of the Penn Face, about sources of stress stemming from academics and other structures, and about the deep and profound fear of showing any sort of vulnerability. Penn culture exists in a series of tensions – between problematizing / vilifying the Penn culture in regard to treatment of mental health issues and acknowledging a more complicated notion of causality of mental health; between personal vulnerability versus a desire to have it all together (or to appear as though one does); and between acknowledging issues of mental health versus effecting real change. Through the use of qualitative data analysis and over the course of twenty-two semi-structured interviews, I have attempted to understand what is influencing how my fellow students are negotiating structures of mental health at present. Trigger Warning: mental health, suicide, depression, anxiety, self-harm, sexual abuse, and sexual assault
... My description of trauma follows other recent works suggesting culture influences PTSD (e.g. Bracken 1998Bracken , 2001Bracken , 2002Erickson 1976;Chemtob 1996;Summerfield 1998 Shweder (1982) finds that individuals characterize the behaviors of others as more consistent in memory-based reports than they do while reporting observations in real-time. The inconsistencies in the behaviors of others get liquidated, revised and made meaningful, because individuals use pre-conceived, behaviorally consistent personality types to remember. ...
This project relates the experience of violence to self-identity. It involves a systematic content analysis of memoirs published on rape, terrorism, genocide, and war. The content analysis provided a complex typology of traumatic stressors that is general to the instances of violence considered. The typology is a style of formal sociology comparable to what has been termed social pattern analysis (Zerubavel 2007). The identified stressors are as follows: the symbolic and cognitive expansion of violence, the loss of self-propriety during violent physical exchanges, the frustration of mundane choices and routines, and the blurring of moral and cognitive boundaries.
A theoretical description was fit to the empirical findings. The typology illustrates that more happens in the process of violence than just direct physical harm. I employ the concepts of reflexivity and authenticity to describe the traumatic meaning of these events. Reflexivity and authenticity are two interrelated concepts used to capture aspects of contemporary Western self-identity. During violence, reflexivity and authenticity appear impossible; the stressors undermine an individual’s basic confidence in his or her self-concept. As a consequence, individuals experience a comprehensive mortification of the self. Symptoms of posttraumatic disorder (PTSD) result from this experience of severe humiliation.
... The highly political process in which PTSD emerged has clearly been a source of great concern outside the insular world of psychiatric academia, with one writer describing Lifton and Shatan's midwifery of PTSD as 'a tragedy, a disastrous incursion of politics into medicine, the hijacking of traditional values by a small minority of activists' (5). Despite the obvious dominance of the military discourse of trauma, other writers had identified distinctive psychopathological responses following natural disasters (13) and domestic violence perpetrated against women (14). At the same time, American psychologists and psychiatrists were beginning to recognise distinct psychopathological states affecting survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and their children (15)(16)(17), culminating in the seminal work of Henry Krystal, who first described alexithymia in concentration camp survivors (18). ...
... Indeed, in contrast to more circumscribed events, the ''collective trauma'' of Katrina disrupted some of the very resources that might have been marshaled, with potential support providers either scattered around the country or too burdened themselves to provide ample help to network members (Fussell, in press;Galea et al., 2007;Weisler et al., 2006). Moreover, even in intact networks, an initial mobilization of help is often followed by a deterioration of perceived social support (Arata, Picou, Johnson, & McNally, 2000;Erickson, 1976;Kaniasty & Norris, 1993;Norris & Kaniasty, 1996). ...
The purpose of this study was to document changes in mental and physical health among 392 low-income parents exposed to Hurricane Katrina and to explore how hurricane-related stressors and loss relate to post-Katrina well-being. The prevalence of probable serious mental illness doubled, and nearly half of the respondents exhibited probable posttraumatic stress disorder. Higher levels of hurricane-related loss and stressors were generally associated with worse health outcomes, controlling for baseline sociodemographic and health measures. Higher baseline resources predicted fewer hurricane-associated stressors, but the consequences of stressors and loss were similar regardless of baseline resources. Adverse health consequences of Hurricane Katrina persisted for a year or more and were most severe for those experiencing the most stressors and loss. Long-term health and mental health services are needed for low-income disaster survivors, especially those who experience disaster-related stressors and loss.
This analysis is not another lament about the unclarity of the concept of alienation, nor a proposal for new conceptual distinctions. Noting the rediscovery of alienation in the 1950s, and its political-practical and intellectual-analytical prominence in the 1960s, the question is raised: Is the idea of alienation now (like “cognitive dissonance” and “authoritarianism” in psychology) an unfashionable has-been whose analytical utility has been found wanting? On the contrary, an argument is developed for the view that contemporary theorizing finds the classical dimensions (if not the name) of alienation essential in both micro- and macroanalyses. The documentation of this argument involves examples from widely varying perspectives (e.g., Marxists; learning theorists; symbolic interactionists), dealing with widely varying domains of experience (e.g., health, work, and collective behavior), employing the several varieties of alienation (powerlessness, meaninglessness, sense of social isolation vs. community, etc.). The significance of this continued prominence of alienation (or alienation-like) constructs, in both psychology and sociology, is assessed.
Since the 1960s, social science research has distinguished technological from
natural disasters. Empirical evidence on disaster-related stress, social impacts of
disasters, and risk has advanced our understanding of natural and technological disasters.
However, there remains a critical need for synthesis of key concepts to advance
theoretical development. This dissertation explores the capacity of social capital theory to
integrate important conceptual elements of technological disaster research.
Focusing on the community of Cordova in Prince William Sound, Alaska, this
research examines persistent social impacts of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS).
Employing a mixed-method approach to explore relationships between social capital and
existing technological disaster concepts, I analyze primary qualitative data collected
through in-depth personal interviews and participant-observation, as well as extant
quantitative data on social and psychological impacts of the EVOS. This analysis reviews different conceptualizations of social capital, highlighting issues related to the following concepts: (1) the ecological-symbolic perspective; (2) renewable resource community; (3) recreancy; (4) collective trauma; (5) corrosive community; (6) lifestyle and lifescape change; (7) ontological security; and (8) secondary disasters. Research findings suggest that social capital theory integrates existing research on technological disasters. Findings also suggest that the EVOS initiated a social capital loss spiral, hindering Cordova’s ability to take effective collective action to address local social and economic issues. Social capital loss spirals are related to: (1) individual stress and collective trauma, (2) a corrosive community, and (3) changes in lifestyle and lifescape. Although Cordovans do not attribute all of the community’s ills to the EVOS, narratives described how initial social impacts depleted stores of social capital that have yet to recover. From this perspective, diminished social capital is a secondary disaster.
Communities experiencing technological disasters can employ social capital
theory to enhance recovery by focusing on efforts to rebuild trust, associations, and
norms of reciprocity. Conceptualizing social impacts using language of social capital
theory can: (1) reduce stigma; (2) enhance survivors’ beliefs about their ability to do
something to restore social capital; and (3) improve opportunities for broader public
support and policy change. Finally, social capital theory holds promise for natural
disaster research.
American Indian communities have long been subject to environmental degradation, but successful “grassroots” struggles to end such exploitation are exceedingly rare. How is it that Joseph William Azure—my father and an unsung hero of social change—came to “notice” in 1985 that “our entire [reservation] mountain range was at risk” from destructive gold mining and, in response, to form “a small grass roots traditional society” that created “a lot of local and national publicity for our cause to save” these mountains? To address this question, I adopted and adapted the approaches and methods of psychobiography to trace shifts in his sense of self in response to a mid‐life socialization into Indigenous traditional spirituality. In developing this brief account of his development as a social change agent, I propose that psychobiography may require “Indigenization” if it is to better represent American Indian lives. Specifically, some Indigenous life stories will perhaps require tellings that center on collective endeavors rather than individual ones, reconstruction of life experiences based on comparably limited (material) archives, deeper preservation of the conventions of orality, and curation by close kin rather than by “distanced” analysts.
Ameaças de morte são violações recorrentes na experiência compartilhada de ocupantes de áreas rurais de Manaus, Presidente Figueiredo e Iranduba no estado do Amazonas, Brasil. Inscrevem-se em uma pletora de atos de violência que tomam parte nos conflitos territoriais movidos pelas disputas por ocupação e propriedade da terra. A noção de situação de ameaça de morte parte de um percurso etnográfico em conflitos territoriais no Amazonas, (Brasil) como proposta de um instrumento analítico que abarca a experiência vivida por um coletivo diante de um conjunto de atos de violência, enquanto um complexo ou uma totalidade. O testemunho das vítimas permite compreender suas experiências marcadas por medo, sofrimento, angústia, silenciamento, trauma e luto; como também por resistências e curas. Ameaças verbais e não verbais, agressões, intimidações, atentados, estupros, destruições de bens, “reintegrações de posse”, calúnias e criminalização constituem atos que carregam a força perlocucionária de trazer a aproximação constante da possibilidade de morte ao cotidiano. Desta forma, a violência reveste-se em uma ação sistemática que tem como objetivo último suscitar o medo e, através deste, a imobilização política e a expulsão dos ocupantes de terra. Por fim, o terror de Estado representa uma contraparte indispensável para a existência e permanência dessa experiência vivida em situação de ameaça e se demarca através das ações das forças de segurança pública, das agências executivas e do judiciário e, principalmente, nos processos judiciais e em “mediações” ou “negociações de conflitos” que a situação de ameaça pode ser ratificada pela combinação entre impunidade e aparência de legalidade, garantindo a busca não completada por justiça.
Resumo Este artigo é uma narrativa pessoal de um drama familiar representado na sequência da morte do meu irmão, decorrente de um acidente de avião. Histórias “verdadeiras” como essa se encaixam no espaço entre ficção e ciências sociais, juntando escrita etnográfica e literária, e compreensão autobiográfica e sociológica. Meu objetivo é reposicionar os leitores em relação aos outros autores de textos de ciências sociais, reconhecendo o potencial para leituras opcionais e encorajando os leitores a “experienciarem uma experiência” que pode revelar não apenas como foi para mim, mas como poderia ser ou foi também para eles alguma vez. Esta forma experimental permite a pesquisadores e leitores reconhecerem e darem voz às suas próprias experiências emocionais e incentiva sujeitos etnográficos (coautores) a reivindicarem e escreverem suas próprias vidas.
The present study examines risk perceptions before and after a recent natural-technological event. The aim is to improve understanding of how long-time residents understand chronic and acute industrial risks, including hazardous industrial releases triggered by natural disasters. Thirty-two interviews were conducted in Channelview, Texas: 19 in February 2017, six months before Hurricane Harvey’s landfall, and 13 with those same residents in December 2017, four months after Harvey’s landfall. Results indicate that long-time residents normalized chronic risks of industrial pollution before the storm, but they were either unaware or incredulous that major industrial spills might result from a hurricane. After such an event, residents strengthened their normalization of industrial risks and became even more inclined to frame them as coming from external forces rather than from local facilities that continue to put their community at risk.
Established techniques supplied metal for the Industrial Revolution until the electrical age, urbanization, and accelerated transportation in the late nineteenth century created demand that could be met only with transformative innovations in mining, mineral beneficiation, and metallurgy. These happened. Earth- and rock-moving technologies pioneered in Massachusetts transferred westward and enabled underground- and open-pit mining on a scale never before seen. Beneficiation by froth flotation opened low-grade ores to exploitation. Electrowinning and electrolytic refining made pure and light metals. Then concerns about mineral depletion raised by nineteenth-century economists, echoed by mid-twentieth-century geologists, adopted by government agencies, and amplified by futurists were dispelled when geochemists untangled the processes of ore formation, only to be replaced by the realization that sinks, not sources, were limiting. Quantitative methods of tracing the flow of metals with their production wastes and emissions from extraction through use and onto discard revealed the size of the legacy from past mining and consequences of future production. Accidents with toxic tailings and acidic mine waters exposed the unfunded costs and lurking hazards of abandoned mine wastes. Now miners’ biggest problem was not finding more ore; it was gaining acceptance of their operations by communities, environmentalists, and regulators. Transformative innovations to make mining tolerable and remove the legacy of past extraction practices are the agenda for the twenty-first century.
Life Takes Place argues that, even in our mobile, hypermodern world, human life is impossible without place. Seamon asks the question: why does life take place? He draws on examples of specific places and place experiences to understand place more broadly. Advocating for a holistic way of understanding that he calls "synergistic relationality," Seamon defines places as spatial fields that gather, activate, sustain, identify, and interconnect things, human beings, experiences, meanings, and events. Throughout his phenomenological explication, Seamon recognizes that places are multivalent in their constitution and sophisticated in their dynamics. Drawing on British philosopher J. G. Bennett’s method of progressive approximation, he considers place and place experience in terms of their holistic, dialectical, and processual dimensions. Recognizing that places always change over time, Seamon examines their processual dimension by identifying six generative processes that he labels interaction, identity, release, realization, intensification, and creation. Drawing on practical examples from architecture, planning, and urban design, he argues that an understanding of these six place processes might contribute to a more rigorous place making that produces robust places and propels vibrant environmental experiences. This book is a significant contribution to the growing research literature in "place and place making studies."
Building ethnographic knowledge is a tacit epistemic process involving two steps: narrowing down the framework through which ethnographers hold constant empirical units as social relationships of the same kind, and paring down the boundaries of time and space to contextualize the data as levels of analysis. This article explicates the workings of and relationships between these hermeneutic and phenomenological processes as the underlying architecture of ethnographic knowledge. It shows that narrowing down data and contexts is fundamental to moving beyond the substantive contribution to the development of sociological cases. In this regard, case development is paradoxical: Narrowing down is necessary for generalizing up.
Primary care clinicians treat the majority of cases of depression in the United States. The primary care clinic is also a site for enactment of a disease-oriented concept of depression that locates disorder within an individual body. Drawing on theories of the self and stigma, this article highlights problematics of primary care depression treatment by examining the lived experience of depression. The data come from individuals who screened positive for depressive symptoms in primary care settings and were followed over 10 years. After iterative mixed-methodological exploration of a large data set, we analyzed interviews from a purposive sample of 46 individuals by means of grounded and phenomenological approaches. We describe two major results. First, we note that depression is experienced as located within and inextricable from relational space and that the self is experienced as relational, rather than autonomous, in depression. Second, we describe the ways in which the experience of depression contradicts a disease-oriented concept such that help seeking intensifies rather than alleviates the relational problem of depression. We conclude by highlighting that an understanding of illness experience may be essential to improving primary care depression treatment and by questioning the bracketing of relational concerns in depression within the construct of stigma.
“Our hearts and our hopes are turned to peace as we assemble here in the East Room this morning,” said President Johnson on the morning of November 19,1968. “All our efforts are being bent in its pursuit. But in this company we hear again, in our minds, the sound of distant battles.” President Johnson was addressing these words to those gathered for the Medal of Honor ceremony in honor of five heroes of the undeclared war in Vietnam. One of those heroes was a young African-American man from Detroit, Sgt. Dwight Johnson. Dwight, or “Skip” to his family and friends, had always been a good kid, an Explorer Scout, and an altar boy, who could only recall losing control of his temper once in his life, when his little brother was being beaten by older boys. But in Vietnam, when the men whose lives he had shared for eleven months were burned to death before his eyes, he suddenly became a savage soldier, killing five to twenty enemy soldiers in the space of half an hour. At one point, he came face to face with a Vietnamese soldier who squeezed the trigger on his weapon aimed point blank at Skip. The gun misfired, and Skip killed him. According to the psychiatrist who saw him several years later, it was this soldier’s face that continued to haunt him.
This article considers the ways in which the habitual, bodily dimension of human experience works as one kind of tacit connection between self and world—between people's need to act and move, and the physical spaces and places in which those actions and movements take place. On the one hand, I argue that the body is an active intentionality in relation to the physical and spatial environment. On the other hand, I argue that the physical and spatial environment—in being made one way rather than another, particularly in terms of pathway layout—plays a potential role in where people go and how many and what kind of physical interactions they have with other people in their immediate place. In short, there is a mutual support at the level of body and world that, in terms of habit, allows the physical environment to be both a taken-for-granted support and a source of interpersonal stimulation and exchange.
Hurricane Katrina has mobilized community-based environmental justice organizing and advocacy and injected a strong social justice analysis of extreme weather events and disaster recovery. Using interviews and observations with New Orleans activists and organizations, we examine three community and advocacy-based rebuilding and organizing projects that arose as a result of diminished local and federal government infrastructure and regulatory engagement: 1) a labor-environment coalition which rebuilt a single neighborhood block as a demonstration project that also provided safety and health training; 2) activists' analyses of sludge toxicity in diverse neighborhood and point source locations; and 3) community organizing to address the re-opening of public schools on contaminated land. This leads us to a broader examination of neighborhood activism regarding rebuilding, barriers and opportunities posed by political and state entities, and the connection between environmental hazards and public health infrastructure problems. An in-depth look at these three case studies underscores the importance of community-based environmental justice organizations for building grassroots infrastructure for effective disaster planning and to ensure that a foundation exists to advance recovery efforts, particularly in situations when government infrastructure and support is lacking.
This work is based, in part, on preliminary research in Mexico City after the earthquakes of September, 1985. It presents an outline of the housing adjustment model of routine household housing behavior; an outline of the ABCX family crisis model; and adapts the two approaches for use in the analysis of disaster effects on households and their housing.
This research is composed of two cross-sectional studies that examine the lingering emotional distress associated with a natural disaster and extend the understanding of its impact on consumption attitudes and behaviors when victims are confronted with additional challenges. The first study examines victims' (n = 426) depression-induced impulsive and compulsive buying after Hurricane Katrina; the second investigates how the recession has exacerbated victims' (n = 191) lingering stress and depressive states, and the effects of these on consumption. These historical events provide a unique opportunity to extend the life event and disaster research and to examine the relationship between negative events and specific consumer behaviors. Results indicate that, years later, compulsive buying has not subsided, and the adversity brought on by the recession appears to have contributed to extended depressive states. Implications for marketers and public policy makers are discussed, as they relate to how vulnerable consumers cope with negative life events.本研究认为情感和行为与负面的生活事件有关，所以不良事件发生后，应重新评估情感和行为。此研究包含了美国历史上最大自然灾害（卡特里娜飓风）后有关情感抑郁的两个典型研究案例，并阐述了受害者遭遇困难后对消费观和行为的影响；换句话说，本文研究了美国经济萧条如何加重卡特里娜飓风受害者的压力和抑郁情绪及其对消费行为的影响。研究案例1阐述了卡特里娜飓风后导致受害者（n = 426）情绪抑郁的诱因以及强迫购买行为，研究案例2则讨论了经济萧条加重了受害者（n = 191）压力盒低迷情绪及其消费相关行为。虽然先前的研究揭露了生活事件和压力之间的关系，但这些历史性事件为生活事件和灾害研究提供了研究机会，同时探究了负面事件与具体消费者行为的关系。研究案例2结果表明经过多年强迫购买行为并没有减少，并且由经济衰退引发的灾难深化了抑郁情绪。类似于卡特里娜飓风灾害并不常见，但也不是个案。新千年以来，我们也目睹过其他灾难性事件，包括自然的和人为的。通过飓风以及美国经济衰退带来的大范围灾难，研究人员探究了环境的变化是如何促动强制性消费行为的。本研究同时探索了灾难后数月甚至数年内负面事件怎样引发这些结果。即使面临困境的时候人们会用不同方式调整自己的情绪，但对于一些人来说，事件的发生会使其更加脆弱并产生持久的影响。随后事件附加而来的困难会延长心理上的痛苦并影响后续行为，一旦被促动便难以控制。本文阐述了脆弱的消费者如何应对负面生活事件，对营销人员和国家决策者产生一定的启示。
The following essay explores the consequences of American sociology's commitment to the value, “justice for all” Concentrating
on the idea of substantive justice, the article assesses consequences for the generation of sociological knowledge, the teaching
of sociology, and sociology's place in the development of public policy. Several conclusions are drawn about the nature of
justice and the practice of sociology. Sociological knowledge is viewed as particularistic. The teaching of sociology competes
with other disciplines in curriculum politics in American higher education. Sociology, properly taught, has much to offer;
its contribution to public policy suggests a strong respect for other value systems and a recognition of global interdependence.
This article is based on interviews with U.S. veterans diagnosed with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In remembering war, the veterans consistently described grotesque death and injury. These stories of "blood, guts, and gore" were often closely associated with negative moral evaluations of war, which included outright moral claims, moralistic allusions, and expressions of moral emotions. I argue that memories of grotesque death and injury "code" combat as moral pollution, and as these veterans present it, combat pollutes every soldier who passes through it. Furthermore, this classification represents a modern moral culture in which the body is sacred, subject to sustained ritual cleanliness and to strict prohibitions against encroachment by others. A mutilated body is severely disordered and filthy, and when a product of human design, it represents an extremely cruel trespass. Consequently, mutilated bodies are doubly polluted and can code combat as negative in the extreme. This article illustrates that personal traumatic memories are sociologically and historically organized, that the traditional religious ideas of purity and pollution still order moral life, and that autobiographical memory can be approached as a classificatory structure.
This article employs the interactionist concept of emergence to explore volunteer behavior in organizational settings after natural disasters. Through a several-year ethnographic study of volunteer relief groups in the Post-hurricane Gulf Coast, I examine how emergent social groups navigate situations where interactional norms, practices, and procedures are ambiguous, unclear, or in continual flux. Grassroots volunteer groups improvised organizational decision-making and leadership structures to develop timely and appropriate responses to the post-disaster environment. In particular, I focus on two distinct groups of volunteers whose response to these emergent interactional structures: improvisers embraced the ambiguity of group norms as an opportunity to innovate and express their creativity, whereas ritualists rejected the lack of structure and order characterized by the volunteer organizations.
Despite living in difficult and socially disorganized conditions, some individuals displaced by disasters and living in FEMA parks can be remarkably resilient to depression. We conceptualize resilience as emerging from a combination of situational advantages that accrue for some residents but not for others. We assess whether situational advantages lead to resilience, either in isolation or in combination with one another, in two parts. First, we used a delimited person-centered analysis (PCA) to identify advantages present among the most resilient and absent among the least resilient FEMA park residents. Second, we used fuzzy-set analysis (FSA) to systematically uncover advantageous individual-level conditions that were consistent among resilient individuals using the full sample of FEMA park respondents. Implications for sociological theory and disaster mental health research are discussed.
As a first step toward researching health related to natural gas drilling, a qualitative approach was chosen to capture valuable insights into the emic view and to identify variables which may otherwise be overlooked or not considered when planning empirical studies. This phenomenological study sought to understand the meaning of health among women living in mid-Appalachia within the context of the environment. Women were interviewed using purposive sampling until no new information was gleaned from the data. Analysis of the data revealed an overarching theme of a sense of powerlessness over changes in the environment experienced by women living closest to the industrial sites. This perceived sense of powerlessness influenced the women's experience of health and affected their immediate living space. As extraction industries such as natural gas drilling increase their operations locally, regionally, and globally, environmental scientists and health care providers need to be aware of the potential health concerns among residents living near industrial sites
We live in a divided world dominated by a fragmentary worldview that treats the wholeness of the human family, urban environments and social reality as inherently discrete, distanced and disconnected. This fragmentary perspective, emerging from Greek dualism and fuelled by the Newtonian mechanical view of the world with its Cartesian split of either/or understanding of reality, does not lead to wholeness. Almost all discussion of urban social policies emerges from a context of fragmented thinking. Drawing from quantum physics, this paper presents a theoretical framework, a new `context' for understanding urban environments and the implementing of programmes of urban transformation, including faith-based programmes. The paper examines examples of effective change agents who have made a difference in people's lives. It culminates with an analysis of the broken window theory and how the differences in approaches—fragmentation or wholeness—generate different results. The critical point is in recognising the energy patterns and operative attractor fields from which emerge negative or positive patterns of behaviour.
Purpose
The paper's primary goals are three‐fold: to explore how disaster tourism serves as a vehicle for self‐reflection in respect to how the disaster tour affects the tourist; to understand how cultures adapt to abrupt change; and to understand how the tourism industry can lead to the cultural and economic revitalization of devastated areas.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on sociological theory, experience, and participant observation to complete an autoethnographic study of a “disaster tour” in and around the New Orleans, Louisiana, metropolitan area.
Findings
Conveying information via auto‐ethnographic disaster tourism helps readers develop an understanding of others by being immersed in the tour experience. Placing the researchers in the midst of the analysis presents a perspective of the cultural mix of New Orleans as place set apart, even among places in the south. Finally, this study highlights the importance of a rapidly rebounding tourism industry by “branding” New Orleans as a “Come back city.”
Research limitations/implications
Because the research employs an auto‐ethnograpic approach, it may not be possible to duplicate the observations and findings, which are subject to the interpretations of the reader.
Originality/value
The contribution of this work to the literature is its highlighting of the flexibility of the tourism industry after a catastrophe and noting that tour guides frame the reconstruction process as “signs of hope” and “rebirth,” rather than a city in decline. Readers come to understand that the key to the revival of New Orleans is how disaster tourists understand the disaster as well as the recovery process.
This article provides theoretical refinement and empirical specification for the breakdown variant of strain theory. It reconceptualizes the relationship between social breakdown and movement emergence in a fashion that is consistent with strands of cultural theory, phenomenology, and symbolic interactionism, and that resonates with prospect theory and research on collective action in a diversity of settings. It argues that the key to the breakdown-movement relationship resides in the actual or threatened disruption of the "quotidian"—that is, the taken-for-granted routines and attitudes of everyday life. Four conditions are especially likely to disrupt the quotidian and heighten prospects of collective action: accidents that throw a community's routines into doubt and/or threaten its existence; actual or threatened intrusion into and/or violation of citizens' sense of privacy, safety, and control; alteration in subsistence routines because unfavorable ratios of resources to claimants or demand; and dramatic changes in structures of social control. The relationship between these conditions and movement emergence is elaborated by drawing on literature on the emergence of collective action in various contexts and on our field work on homeless mobilization in eight cities. We close by exploring the implications of our analysis for understanding more fully the generality of various conditions and processes commonly thought to apply to social movement emergence.
This study examines the effects of religion and of the quantity and quality of social support on self-esteem and depression among the suddenly bereaved. Data are collected from medical examiner records and mail-back surveys from family members of victims of suicides and accidental deaths in a large metropolitan area of the United States. Recursive models of church attendance and social support on well-being are estimated using generalized least squares. We find that religious participation significantly increases self-esteem, but has no significant effect on depression. The findings also indicate that frequency of contact with friends and relatives, confiding with friends and relatives, and quality of recieved expressive support independently predict both self-esteem and depression.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 486-516).
One of the greatest disaster relief resources available to emergency management officials is the disaster victim community. Contrary to a popular image of social and psychological breakdown in the aftermath of a sudden catastrophic event, impacted communities do respond rationally and adaptively. Recommendations are advanced for utilizing community groups in pre-disaster planning and in relief operations used during the emergency period. Copyright 1985 by The Policy Studies Organization.
PIP
This is an unannotated, interdisciplinary bibliography on refugees, presented in alphabetical order by author and covering the period from the 1950s to the present.
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