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Hayim Granot: Home University, School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
Introduction
The term, "disaster subculture" was introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, but has since not been given a great deal of attention. Even though it is still referred to in passing, the elements of disaster subculture are rarely discussed. We shall seek to examine the term and review those elements in this paper.
History
Disaster or emergency subculture was first suggested by sociologists in the mid-1960s and developed in the 1970s. They formulated the concept and analysed the circumstances under which one might find its development.
Moore[1] was apparently the first to refer to cultural adaptation in coping with recurrent threats. He believed disaster subculture to include:"
Those adjustments, actual and potential, social, psychological and physical which are used by residents of such areas in their efforts to cope with disasters which have struck or which tradition indicates may strike in the future."
Anderson[2] applied the concept in discussing civil defence agencies, but did not essentially enhance of its definition. The emergence of certain characteristics in communities experienced in coping with disaster was taken by Dynes[3] to indicate the relevance of latent disaster subcultures in these communities. Kreps[4] points out that much of the data amassed by the Disaster Research Center on communities, "...have been gathered on 'disaster subcultures' that include information on the extent of previous experience and the patterns of community preparedness for, interpretation of, and response to disaster events".
The concept gained considerable currency in the next decade, when Weller and Wenger[5] elaborated on the subject. Wenger particularly, seems to have contributed a great deal to its formulation. He wrote at some length on the development of disaster subcultures[6]. The elements which he believed promoted their growth were:
- Repetitive impacts experienced by the community. The cause must be one that has devastated the community with some repetitiveness in order to have an impact on human memory whether individually or collectively.
- A focal agent which allowed a period of forewarning. There needs to be some period of time that allows the community to go over to its emergency mode of response.
- Salient consequential damage. A disaster must leave death and/or destruction in its wake to impact...
