Toward an Applied Anthropology of Disaster: Learning from Disasters-Experience,Method,and Theory

Abstract

This article begins with a specific event: the fire on 3 December 1999 at the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Company, Worcester, Massachusetts, in which sixfirefighters died. Substantively, this article studies disaster, the human experience ofdisaster, thesocial construction ofdisaster, and the contribution of applied anthropology to being useful following disasters. Methodologically, this article explores anthropologically generic (1) epistemological issues (what we think weknow isoften atbest apart ofthe complex cultural picture), (2) ontological issues (fidelity todata andtolearningfrom experience, versusfidelity totheory and method), and (3) relational issues (learning from and with others in thevery process of applying what weknow). This article is situated at the intersection between theory, praxis, and ethics.