Disaster Resilience from a Sociological Perspective. Exploring Three Italian Earthquakes as Models for Disaster Resilience Planning (Humanitarian…

ABOUT THIS BOOK

· Focuses on a sociological approach to enhancing disaster resilience at the family and community levels
· Has practical, operative implications for disaster prevention, planning and management
· Addresses the critical challenge of security, training, and active responses for future catastrophes

Natural disasters traumatize individuals, disrupt families, and destabilize communities. Surviving these harrowing events calls for courage, tenacity, and resilience. Professional planning requires specific types of knowledge of how people meet and cope with extreme challenges.

Disaster Resilience from a Sociological Perspective examines three major earthquakes occurring in Italy over a fourteen - year period for a well-documented analysis of populations' responses to and recovery from disaster, the social variables involved, and the participation of public agencies. This timely volume reviews sociological definitions and models of disaster, identifying core features of vulnerability and multiple levels of individual and social resilience. The analysis contrasts the structural and supportive roles of Italy's civil protection and civil defense services in emergency planning and management as examples of what the author terms professional resilience. And testimony from earthquake survivors and volunteers gives voice to the social processes characteristic of disaster. Among the areas covered:

· Social context for concepts of disaster, vulnerability, risk, and resilience
· Types of resilience: a multidimensional analysis, focused on a physical, ecological, and ecosystem perspective
· Findings from three earthquakes: loss, hope, and community.
· Two systems of organizational response to emergencies
· Toward a relational approach to disaster resilience planning
· Plus helpful tables, methodological notes, and appendices

For researchers in disaster preparedness, psychology, and sociology, Disaster Resilience from a Sociological Perspective raises--and addresses--salient questions about people and communities in crisis, and how studying them can improve preparedness in an uncertain future.

Content Level » Research
Keywords » crisis communication - disaster planning - disaster resilience - methodology in disaster research - risk communication - sociology of disaster
Related subjects » Community Psychology - Public Health - Social Sciences

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction.-Sociological question of crises and disasters in our contemporary society.- What is resilience? The state of the art.- Organizational response to emergencies: Italian civil protection and civil defense service.- Civil Protection Voluntary Service.-Italian civil protection volunteers: “professional” resilience and the importance of training.- Population experience of earthquakes and possible resilient responses to disasters.- conclusion.

AUTHORS & EDITORS

Barbara Lucini is a teaching assistant in sociology and risk communication, crisis management courses and lecturer on crisis and disaster topics in universities, secondary schools, regional school of civil protection and civil protection voluntary associations. Since 2008 she has collaborated with the research project ITSTIME (www.itstime.it) based at the Catholic University, Milan, Department of Sociology.