The social aspects of natural and technological disasters were touched on in the early days of sociology. Samuel Prince wrote a doctoral dissertation in sociology at Columbia University, which was published in 1920, and was called "Catastrophe and Social Change: Based Upon a Sociological Study of the Halifax Disaster." Carr had an article in a 1932 issue of the American Journal of Sociology entitled "Disasters and the sequence-pattern concept of social change." Pitirim Sorokin, the famous Russian theorist, in 1942 wrote a book on "Man and Society in Calamity: The Effects of War, Revolution, Famine, Pestilence Upon the Human Mind."

However, continuous and systematic research on disaster did not emerge until after World War II. This effort was pioneered primarily by sociologists such as Lewis Killian, Charles Fritz, E. L. Quarantelli, Fred Bates and Harry Williams. Much of the earliest work was centered (1949-1954) around a research project at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago which became the prototype of how quick response field studies could be made immediately before, during, and right after disasters. Much of this research was guided by ideas from the sociological speciality of collective behavior.

Another key happening was the establishment in 1963 of the Disaster Research Center (DRC) at the Ohio State University and directed by three sociologists including Russell Dynes and E. L. Quarantelli. DRC soon merged the collective behavior framework with a focus on community and organizational changes during disasters. Most of the field work was undertaken by graduate students in sociology, many of whom went on to distinguished careers in the area. Apart from DRC, other sociologists, especially in the 1950s-1960s contributed empirical studies and theoretical statements to the area: these included, for example, Allen Barton, Harry Moore and Ralph Turner. The basic theme of almost all these scholars and researchers was that individual, group, organizational and community behavior in disasters could be described and analyzed with sociological ideas, concepts, hypotheses and theories. There should not be a field called "disasterology". Just as sociology informed disaster studies, the research result could in turn help the development of sociology. Some of these ideas were codified in a book edited by Dynes, De Marchi and Pelanda, and called "Sociology of Disasters: Contribution of Sociology to Disaster Research", and in a later volume edited by Dynes and Tierney called "Disasters, Collective Behavior, and Social Organization."

After the initiation of systematic studies in the United States, research and writings on disasters started to appear elsewhere, although much of this did not occur until the 1970s-1980s. In particular, sociologists were among the early leaders in Sweden, Italy, Germany and Japan (this included such scholars as Hultaker, Pelanda, Dombrowsky and Akimoto). In more recent times, sociologists have been involved and often have been the leaders in social science disaster research in such countries as Russia, Australia, Armenia, China and New Zealand. An indication of the predominance of sociologists in the area is that for over a decade the three major research centers in the US were headed by sociologists.

There were also early efforts to establish international linkages among disaster researchers around the world. Papers were presented at the earliest World Congresses of Sociology such as those held at Evian and Varna. By the 1970s a Working Group on the Sociology of Disasters was organized in the International Sociological Association. This group obtained status as a permanent Research Committee on the Sociology of Disasters in 1982. This Committee with more than 200 members in over three dozen countries, has its own newsletter, "Unscheduled Events" and journal "The International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters" (established in May 1983).

In recent years the influence and salience of sociologists in disaster policy and administrative matters has increased substantially. For example, there has always been a sociologist among the members of the US National Academy of Science Board on Natural Disasters, which was set up over a decade ago. Many of the national committees established in 1990 for the UN Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, include sociologists. They also have been increasingly incorporated as participants in centers for hazards/disasters/risks run by engineers, seismologists, meteorologists, and other physical scientists. Finally, sociologists have more and more been added as members of editorial advisory boards of non-sociological journals such as Natural Hazards, The Journal of Hazardous Materials and Risk and Management.

Home