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Jonathan Bergman’s article “Disaster: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” traces the development of the study of disaster. His approach to the discipline is broader than our class’s focus on natural disasters, encompassing “supernatural occurrences” (934). This difference in understanding of the parameters of a disaster touches on the difficultly in defining a disaster, which we experienced firsthand in class. Bergman touches on this on page 935 of this article.
Bergman points out the multidisciplinary nature of disaster studies, presenting scholars who have approached it through historical, sociological and ecological approaches, among others. This multidisciplinary nature adds to the difficulty in creating a universal definition of disaster, by bringing in many different scholars who have differing opinions, adding to the controversy. However, disaccord surrounding definitions is a not unique to the study of disasters, it is also present in other fields, such as genocide studies. He briefly examines many secondary works, drawing on a broad spectrum of disasters and the literature surrounding them, to illustrate his points.
Bergman mentioned several articles that illustrate how disasters highlight and aggravate the fissures in society, which substantiates the point that was made in class yesterday. One example that Bergman cited was the socioeconomic and racial components of the decision to open levies in the aftermath of Katrina to save the property and assists of the more wealthy neighborhoods. However, he does mention that a buffer of a certain period of time is needed between the event being studied and the scholar who is studying it, which is an idea that is pertinent point to the study of history as a discipline.