What's the problem with disaster? Anthropology, social work, and the qualitative slot

Abstract

On March 3, 2019, an EF4 tornado devastated the rural Alabama communities of Beauregard and Smith Station, killing 23 people and causing direct injuries to another 97. This storm was unusually devastating, with twice the predicted casualty rate based on the tornado’s power, the impacted population, and impacted housing stock. In this paper, we apply qualitative methods from anthropology, geography, and planning to better understand the social context of this unusually devastating tornado. Recognizing that there are multiple formulations of the problem of disasters, we aim to highlight how interdisciplinary qualitative research can deepen our understanding of tornado disasters. Combining policy analysis, political economic critique, and ethnographic description, we seek to showcase how qualitative research enables us to interrogate and reimagine the problem of disasters. Rather than simply juxtaposing qualitative and quantitative methods, we emphasize how the heterogeneity of qualitative research methods can strengthen interdisciplinary research projects by generating dialogue about the multiple contexts relevant to understanding a social problem. While problem definition remains a central challenge to establishing a dialogue between anthropology and social work, here, we intend to extend this discussion to larger interdisciplinary collaborations. Situating the issue of problem formation within a broader ecology of qualitative inquiry, we highlight how dialogue about problem definition can, itself, produce meaningful insights into how we understand disasters.

Adaptability, Interdisciplinarity, Engageability: Critical Reflections on Green Social Work Teaching and Training

“…These micro- and macro-level interdisciplinary collaborations accelerated the post-earthquake recovery and stimulated the grassroots efforts to support the post-earthquake trauma relief and protect community-based cultural heritage [ 34 ]. After the EF4 tornado in Alabama (2019), Holmes and colleagues reported that social workers collaborated with anthropologists to employ an interdisciplinary policy analysis and political-economic critique approach, stimulate the macro-level dialogue, and identify the deep-seated causes of human and economic loss caused by the tornado [ 35 ]. Although these GSW practices powerfully demonstrate the need for social workers to engage with multidisciplinary professionals in disaster settings, GSW training to raise the students’ interdisciplinary awareness remains under-researched.…”