Dealing with Disasters:Multiple Dimensions of Policies and Practices

面對災難：多面向的政策與實踐
Andrew J. Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart (Strathern) 美國匹茲堡大學教授

  Disasters exact a huge effort of response on the part of different actors: government, aid organizations, research workers, and most significantly in the long-run the communities that are torn apart physically and psychologically by the events (typhoon, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption etc.). In this paper we report on some of our own work as researchers in this vital domain of human experience, in Taiwan, Japan, and other parts of the world. We foreground the following topics: disasters and relocation, disasters and recovery, the place of rituals and memorialization, and the multiple roles that can be played by aid organizations such as NGOs, including the long-term compassionate work of Tzu Chi.We begin our discussion with our own efforts to recognize the importance of disasters as a topic for investigation by creating a sub-discipline of anthropology called Disaster Anthropology.

  當災難發生後需要不同角色的積極應變：政府、援助組織、研究人員，以及從長遠來看，最要注目的是那些在身心上被颱風、海嘯、地震或火山爆發等災難所傷害的人們。在論文中我們報導了一些我們親自在臺灣、日本及其他幾個國家地區所進行的，關於這些人類經驗中生命攸關之領域的調查。 文中我們強調以下幾點：災後與遷移、災後與復原、當地的紀念儀式及如NGO等賑災組織所能扮演的多種角色，包含慈濟所提供的長期慈善關懷工作。從我們的研究成果開始討論起，讓我們確認研究災難的重要性，並藉此認為在人類學中應建立一門分科，名為「人類災難學」。