This chapter traces disaster definitions devised by social scientists, recounting the evolution
of scholarly thinking and the elements of the concept. The emphasis is on the definition of …

Disaster Theory: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Concepts and Causes offers the
theoretical background needed to understand what disasters are and why they occur …

Disasters kill, maim, and generate increasingly large economic losses. But they do not
wreak their damage equally across populations, and every disaster has social dimensions at …

The numerous theoretical approaches to disasters can be classified into three main
paradigms. We present their content, chronological developments and cleavages. The first is …

I see more agreement than disagreement among social scientists about what disasters are
and how they can be distinguished from other types of societal phenomena (cf. Hewitt …

Are conflict situations such as the ethnic clashes in Yugoslavia or Rwanda, terrorist attacks
and riots, the same kind of social crises as those generated by natural and technological …

The United Nations proclaimed the 1990s as the International Decade for Disaster
Reduction. This proclamation, and the activities it generates, highlights the necessity of …

The definition of disaster remains a contested issue in sociology. Two contrasting definitions
vie for attention: the generic and the event-quality. One definition ignores the physical …

Sociologists are becoming increasingly aware of the changing nature of risk in late
modernity and the shifting landscape of the sociological study of disasters. This increased" …

Disaster researchers come from varied fields of inquiry, practice diverse methodologies, yet
we embrace some of the same, perhaps dysfunctional, academic traditions. This paper aims …