Conceptualizing and Confronting Disasters: A Panorama of Social Science Research and International Policies

Abstract

Catastrophes such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanos, and floods have been called ‘natural’ because they are caused by hazards that are of natural origin. They have long been — and continue to be — the object of systematic scientific study, primarily by researchers from the so-called hard sciences, in particular the earth and engineering sciences (Gilbert, 2009). In the course of the twentieth century, however, catastrophes also attracted the interest of social science researchers, an interest that has increased considerably in the wake of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in 2005.¹