Introduction: Disasters and Hazards in Socio-Legal Studies

• Pages: ix-xii
• Date: 29 October 2012
• Published date: 29 October 2012
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1521-6136(2012)0000017003
• Author: Mathieu Deflem

INTRODUCTION: DISASTERS AND

HAZARDS IN SOCIO-LEGAL STUDIES

In view of the global warming that has increasingly been plaguing the earth,

it should be no surprise that the world has been witnessing an unprecedented

wave of natural disasters over the past decades. Among the most important

of these natural calamities in recent years, mention can be made of the

Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of 2004, hurricanes Katrina and

Irene in the United States in 2005, cyclone Nargis in Burma in 2008, the

Haiti earthquake of 2010, the Russian heat wave of 2010, the 2011 tornado

in Joplin, Missouri, and the 2011 To¯hoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Ranging from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, avalanches, and floods to

heat waves, storms, and epidemics, the field of disaster research presents a

myriad of questions for social-scientific exploration.

Naturally, the sociological and, more broadly, social-science study of

disasters and hazards has been an area of considerable interest, with several

classic studies (Erikson, 1994; Quarantelli, 1998) as well as contemporary

ground-breaking empirical research efforts (Fothergill, 2004; Klinenberg,

2002). Yet, the field has also been predominantly practical in orientation,

with rather weak links to the mainstream of social-science interest, especially

in theoretical respects (Picou, 2009; Tierney, 2007). More recently, however,

sociological studies of disasters, even those of a distinctly natural character,

have taken on a constructionist viewpoint to focus on the social conditions

and interpretive frameworks that define a disaster and how it can be

responded to by individuals and organizations (Lakoff, 2010; Rodrı

´guez,

Quarantelli, & Dynes, 2007). Disaster preparedness and response are

likewise themes that have received scholarly attention, albeit it mostly from

a policy-oriented viewpoint, rarely venturing into a truly social-science

orientation. It is striking that in the latter area the fields of socio-legal

studies, including criminal justice and sociology of law, have been relatively

absent or, at least, have not been situated in the specialty field of the

sociology of disasters (e.g., Deflem & Sutphin, 2009). What the chapters in

this volume seek to do is precisely to address some of the many legal

dimensions of disasters and hazards from a social-science point of view.

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