17. Hi, this is @akgungor_c again. Let’s come back to where we had left: Post-disaster controversies… These are indeed closely associated with how we individually and socially (re)construct the #catastrophe.
18. A disaster is the outcome(s) of a physical occurrence as well as how we perceive and process them. Like any “event”, for every disaster, there are as many accounts as the number of people who’ve been exposed to it.
19. Individual #narratives of a disaster are the expression of how we position ourselves vis-a-vis the catastrophe and its effects on us, in a sense, fabricating our own #reality.
20. As Searle puts it, like any other #phenomena, disasters “can be assigned functions, and thus assessed as good or bad, depending on what functions we choose to assign to them and how well they serve those functions.” The process is not limited to the individual level.
21. As far as disaster is concerned, disparate narratives of the same event can be “produced” and maintained on a collective level too. Formal and informal groups such as political parties, non-governmental organizations, unions but also other actors like media, business, …
22. …academia, authorities, elaborate and disseminate their own interpretation of the catastrophe, in line with their own values, intentions, priorities, and goals. As Dombrowski puts it, “those who define declare what they intend to do with the social process called disaster”.
23. Disaster is -inevitably- political. Not only it does put the political system under stress by creating acute situations and urgent demands to be addressed, but it also opens the way to inquiries that will be voiced in public space.
24. It is in fact an extraordinary moment when a society faces its own #vulnerabilities and gets agitated, while at the same time…
25.…the usual “rapports de force” and the social/political controls may temporarily be unable to limit political expression. As a #complex #situation, disaster confuses “the establishment” which, even temporarily, finds itself in a position of weakness.
26. This creates a time period during which different versions, or narratives of the disaster surface and clash. Studying (even just) who and what lies behind those narratives, how they interact, helps us reveal a formidable amount of information about that #society.
27. We’ll continue with how these narratives lead the way for the struggle for political agenda making. See you later. PS: I’ll note a couple of bibliographical references you might find interesting at the end.
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