@article{ref1,
title="Again and Again: Is a Disaster What We Call a 'Disaster'?",
journal="International journal of mass emergencies and disasters",
year="1995",
author="Dombrowsky, WR",
volume="13",
number="3",
pages="241-254",
abstract="Following Carr who defined disaster as the collapse of cultural protections, this paper develops a sociological approach to processes commonly called &quot;disaster.&quot; Epistemologically, the definitions used in science and practice are classified and redefined as &quot;programmatic declarations.&quot; Definers declare what they perceive as a problem and how they intend to solve it. Given the fact that neither &quot;problem and perception&quot; nor &quot;solution and exigency&quot; necessarily match, the probability of mismatches increases when inconsistent conceptions restructure the view one has of reality. Still, the transformation of nature into culture is interpreted within &quot;pre-modern&quot; expression and false causal attractions: &quot;Des Astro,&quot; &quot;evil star,&quot; &quot;bad luck,&quot; and &quot;blind faith.&quot; In contrast, this paper suggests a conception that defines disaster as an empirical falsification of human action, as proof of the incorrectness of human insight into both nature and culture.<p />",
language="",
issn="0280-7270",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}