Bringing Culture Back In: Exploring the Cultural Dimensions of Disaster

Abstract

This special issue is devoted to the popular culture of disaster. In virtually every type of society, human settlement patterns produce some kind of disaster, and every culture that lives through a major disaster produces some kind of cultural representation of it. The stories of a culture's experience with disaster are often passed on through folklore, remembered through permanent or occasional memorials, relived through dramatized portrayals, and embedded in a group's collective conscience as permanent markers of social time. In some societies, such as the United States, disasters occupy a central place in popular culture, appearing almost nightly on pseudo-scientific television programs and generating millions of dollars for movie makers. Because disasters and representations of them pervade so much of social life, we think it is important and worthwhile to begin paying systematic attention to the cultural dimensions of disasters. This special issue of the journal is an important step in that direction. We have tried to assemble papers that stimulate thought about various aspects of the popular culture of disaster-how it should be defined, what concepts should be used to study it, and why it is important to study. In no way is this single issue meant to be a definitive statement on the topic. In fact, if it is successful, this issue will raise more questions than it answers. By devoting an entire issue of the journal to this topic, we hope that scholars will build on what is presented here and begin thinking about alternative ways to approach the subject.