When normality fails: Discursive reactions to disaster

Richard Mohr

doi:10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1256

Authors

Richard Mohr Social Research Policy & Planning https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2127-0440

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1256

Keywords:

disasters, epistemology, discourse, Canguilhem, disruption

Abstract

Shocks from disasters challenge the normality of everyday life. Emotional and political reactions include anxiety and blame, but these must come together with knowledge through shared discourse to formulate responses, often immediate. The study draws on a phenomenological analysis of personal experience and discursive reactions to fires and the pandemic. It is informed by ethical and social approaches to epistemology and discourse, drawing on sociology of knowledge and studies of rhetoric. From this it is concluded that facts are agreed elements for debate, as in the legal tradition, rather than guarantees of certainty. Knowledge relevant to disaster discourse arises through shared experience and robust communicative institutions, from the local to the scientific, and including the wisdom of First Nations. Disasters are uncanny because they defy everyday know-how. In disrupting the relationship of people to their milieu, they require a new accommodation among and between human and non-human actors.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Views 438
Downloads:
PDF_12_3_Mohr_OSLS 261
XML_12_3_Mohr_OSLS 15

Author Biography

Richard Mohr, Social Research Policy & Planning

Dr Richard Mohr is an urban and legal sociologist and a director of Social Research Policy and Planning Pty Ltd. He has worked as a community health coordinator, planning and evaluation consultant and academic in Law, Architecture, Law, and Sociology at the University of Wollongong, Sydney University, UNSW, McGill University. Email address: rmohr@srpp.com.au

References

Angelides, S., 2011. Disorder as “pseudo-idea”. Atlantis: A women’s studies journal, 35(2), 10–20.

Aristotle, 1960. The Rhetoric of Aristotle: An Expanded Translation with Supplementary Examples for Students of Composition and Public Speaking. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Bavel, J.J. van, et al., 2020. Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nature Human Behaviour [online], 4, 460–471 Available from: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0884-z [Access 2 April 2021].

Beck, U., 1999. World Risk Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Berger, P.L., and Luckmann, T., 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press.

Bettetini, M., 2004. Figure di verità: La finzione nel Medioevo occidentale. Turin: Einaudi.

Bissell, D., 2018. Transit Life: How Commuting Is Transforming Our Cities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Blaikie, P., et al., 1994. At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability and Disasters. London: Routledge.

Bloch, E., 1998. The anxiety of the engineer. In: E. Bloch, Literary Essays. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 304–313.

Canguilhem, G., 1991. The Normal and the Pathological. Trans.: C.R. Fawcett with R. Cohen. New York: Zone Books.

Cicero, M.T., 1954. Rhetorica ad herennium. Trans.: H. Kaplan. London: William Heinemann.

Crisp, R., 2010. Virtue ethics and virtue epistemology. Metaphilosophy, 41(1–2), 22–40.

Doran, M., 2016. Four Corners: Nigel Scullion says his “interest not piqued” before seeing youth detention footage. ABC News, 26 July.

Fuller, S., 2006. Kuhn vs Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Gadamer, H.G., 1989. Truth and Method. 2nd (revised) ed. New York: Continuum.

Hacking, I., 2002. Historical Ontology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Haldane, J.B.S., 1941. Science and Everyday Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Husserl, E., 1983. Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy, First book: General introduction to a pure phenomenology. Trans.: F. Kersten from the German (1913) ed. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Klein, N., 2008. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. London: Penguin Books.

Kuhn, T.S., 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd enlarged ed. University of Chicago Press. (First published in 1962).

Lanzara, G.F., 2016. Shifting Practices: Reflections on Technology, Practice and Innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Latour, B., 1996. Petite réflexion sur le culte moderne des dieux faitiches. Paris: Synthélabo.

Latour, B., 2020. Is this a dress rehearsal? Critical inquiry [online], 26 March. Blog post. Available from: https://critinq.wordpress.com/2020/03/26/is-this-a-dress-rehearsal/ [Access 2 April 2021].

Lichtheim, G., 1967. The Concept of Ideology and Other Essays. New York: Vintage.

Mannheim, K., 1960. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Marx, K., 1970. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Moscow: Progress.

Mitchell, W.J.T., 1986. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. University of Chicago Press.

Mohr, R., 2005. Some conditions for culturally diverse deliberation. Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 20(1), 87-102.

Mohr, R., 2009. The year the Enlightenment ended: “The Uses of Argument” and “La Nouvelle Rhétorique” 1958–2008. Working Papers du Centre Perelman de philosophie du droit [online]. Brussels: Centre Perelman de philosophie du droit. Available from: https://www.philodroit.be/The-Year-the-Enlightenment-Ended?lang=en [Access 1 November 2021].

Morris, W., ed., 1969. The American Heritage dictionary of the English language. New York: American Heritage.

Mueller, J.C., 2018. Advancing a sociology of ignorance in the study of racism and racial non‐knowing. Sociology Compass, 12(8), (e12600).

Nguyen, K., and Bogle, A., 2020. Fires misinformation being spread through social media. ABC News [online], 8 January 2020. Available from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-08/fires-misinformation-being-spread-through-social-media/11846434 [Access 11 March 2021].

Nygh, P.E., and Butt, P., eds., 1998. Butterworths Concise Australian Legal Dictionary. Sydney: LexisNexis Butterworths.

Oreskes, N., and Conway, E.M., 2011. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York: Bloomsbury.

Perelman, C., and Olbrechts-Tyteca, L., 1969. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. University of Notre Dame Press.

Petrucci, V., 2000. Retorica, diritto e scienza sociale. Sociologia del diritto, 27(2), 35–45.

Rait, J., 2020. A single “voice of truth”. Guardian Australia [online], 23 March. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/23/a-single-voice-of-truth-from-governments-and-health-authorities-is-critical-during-this-crisis [Access 23 March 2020].

Renault, E., 2008. Souffrances sociales. Paris: La Découverte.

Schutz, A., 1967. The Phenomenology of the Social World. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Searle, J.R., 1996. The Construction of Social Reality. London: Penguin.

Shapiro, B.J., 2000. A Culture of Fact: England 1550–1720. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Simondon, G., 2012. Du mode d’existence des objets techniques. Paris: Aubier.

Smithson, M., 1985. Toward a social theory of ignorance. Journal for the theory of social behaviour 15(2), 151–172.

Spargo-Ryan, A., 2020. Every day Melbourne wakes and waits for the news. It's worse this time. The Guardian [online], 30 July. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/30/every-day-melbourne-wakes-and-waits-for-the-news-its-worse-this-time [Access 2 September 2020].

Stiegler, B., 2019. The Age of Disruption: Technology and Madness in Computational Capitalism. Trans.: D. Ross. Cambridge: Polity.

Teubner, G., 1989. How the law thinks: Toward a constructivist epistemology of law. Law and society review 23(5), 727–757.

Trabsky, M., 2022. Normalising death in the time of a pandemic. Oñati Socio-Legal Series [online], 12(3-this issue). Available from: https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1232 [Access 20 May 2022].

Vázquez Medel, M.Á., 2008/2009. La semiótica de la cultura y la construcción del imaginario social. Entretextos [online], 11–12–13. Available from: www.academia.edu/9872701/La_Semiótica_de_la_Cultura_y_la_construcción_del_Imaginario_Social [Access 25 July 2016].

Villacañas, J.L., 2019. Imperiofilia y el populismo nacional-católico: Otra historia del imperio español. Madrid: Lengua de Trapo.