The Sociology of Disaster in the United States and Its Implications for China

近年来,中国境内和世界范围内发生的大规模灾难引起公共领域研究者和政策制定者的广泛关注,但是国内社会学界对灾难问题鲜有研究。本文着重从学科发展的知识社会学角度,回顾和评论美国灾难社会学的缘起、主要议题、近年来的反思和教训,借此指出其对中国灾害研究的启示。美国灾难社会学受“军方订单式”研究模式的影响,出现了过度实用化、经费依赖、远离主流社会学等问题,“政策社会学”过度发展而“专业社会学”和“公共社会学”发展不足。与史学、人类学、社会工作等学科中的灾难研究相比,灾难社会学研究在中国尚未起步,在未来发展中,应注意在三种取向上保持平衡,尤其要发展专业社会学和公共社会学,以保证该领域的研究健康发展。

Although large-scale disasters in China and around the world have received worldwide attention from the public sphere and policy makers in recent years, Chinese sociology has rarely addressed disasters. Drawing on the sociology of knowledge, particularly Burawoy's division of labor within sociology, this paper reviews the origins, major topics, and problems of the sociology of disaster in the United States, and points out lessons for Chinas disaster research. At the early stage of the American sociology of disaster, the military's commission projects heavily shaped its paradigm and resulted in a variety of problems, such as overdevelopment in applied research, dependency on funding, and isolation from mainstream sociology. In other words, policy sociology has been overdeveloped, while professional sociology and public sociology remain underdeveloped. The Chinese sociology of disaster has not started yet. The authors argue that the future development of Chinese sociology of disaster could benefit greatly from avoiding problems in American sociology of disaster. The field should focus on the development of public and professional sociology approaches, while at the same time, the field needs to keep a healthy balance among professional, policy, and public sociology approaches research.

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