Toward an Understanding of Disaster from Field Science Perspectives.
Understanding how communities work is vital for strengthening capacities to cope, to
survive, and to recover from disasters. As the IFRC report puts it: “If we cannot understand
these capacities and build on them, we perpetuate the idea that “we know best” and that only
“risk” matters. We thereby ignore the most important resource for managing disasters:
people’s own strategies to cope and adapt” (IFRC 2004). More over, one has to keep in mind
that human misery is created as much by epidemics, violence, and natural disaster as by the
inefficiency in distributing and mishandling of aids, as well as by violence evoked by
desperation, mistrust, and fear. From field science perspective, local knowledge is crucial to
effectively handle such situations. In other words, we need to localize global crises in order
to be more effective in maintaining preparedness, managing emergency situation as well as
delivering humanitarian aids and facilitating healing for those whose lives were shattered by
catastrophic devastations that have become an integral part of our contemporary risk society.