Citation

Kreps GA. Int. J. Mass Emerg. Disasters 1989; 7(3): 215-241.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1989, International Sociological Association, International Research Committee on Disasters)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

I begin the paper by raising the venerable question: what is a disaster? The issue here is the need for clarity about what we are studying. Confronting that issue leads inevitably to problems of taxonomy in studies of disasters, the hazards to which they relate, and the social structures which are antecedent and consequent of both. These problems are raised in the first section of the paper and discussed in the second. The second section includes a brief for the fundamental role of theoretical taxonomies for mining past research and guiding future studies. As then suggested in the third section of the paper, preliminary taxonomies can be grounded empirically by the burgeoning but disparate archives of data accruing from over 40 years of research. More refined taxonomies can then guide future studies. The fourth section of the paper argues that sustained taxonomic work can contribute to the applied push toward integrated emergency and hazards management, just as disaster and hazards research specialties generate greater attention from mainstream social management science. The focus of that attention should be on disasters as non-routine social problems. The paper closes with a couple of basic questions, ones which I think should always be on our minds, and ones which bring us full circle in addressing the topic posed by the title of this paper. Simply put, what would theoretical breakthroughs in studies of disasters, hazards, and social structure entail? Would we know them if we saw them?