Matthewman Steve, Uekusa Shinya
Department of Sociology, University of Auckland, 10 Symonds Street, Level 9, Auckland, 1010 New Zealand.
School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Theory Soc. 2021;50(6):965-984. doi: 10.1007/s11186-021-09442-4. Epub 2021 Mar 16.
Disaster scholars have long complained that their field is theory light: they are much better at doing and saying than analyzing. The paucity of theory doubtless reflects an understandable focus on case studies and practical solutions. Yet this works against big picture thinking. Consequently, both our comprehension of social suffering and our ability to mitigate it are fragmented. Communitas is exemplary here. This refers to the improvisational acts of mutual help, collective feeling and utopian desires that emerge in the wake of disasters. It has been observed for as long as there has been a sociology of disasters. Within the field, there have been numerous efforts to name and describe it. Yet there has been far less enthusiasm to theorize it, which means that the disaster literature has not adequately explained the social conditions under which communitas arises (or fails to). In this article, we synthesize numerous case studies to do so. This takes us beyond simple statements of what communitas is and what it should be called, to considerations of the conditions under which it emerges, how it should be conceptualized, the factors that might prevent communitas, and how we might encourage it. While primarily a theoretical work, the identification of communitas' facilitators and barriers have practical import for disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy as communitas has frequently proven to be a positive and potent force.
长期以来，灾害研究学者一直抱怨他们的领域缺乏理论：他们在行动和表述方面比分析方面做得更好。理论的匮乏无疑反映了对案例研究和实际解决方案的一种可以理解的关注。然而，这不利于从宏观角度思考。因此，我们对社会苦难的理解以及减轻苦难的能力都是支离破碎的。“交融性社区体验”（Communitas）在这里就是一个典型例子。这指的是在灾难之后出现的互助、集体情感和乌托邦式愿望的即兴行为。自从有了灾害社会学以来，人们就一直观察到这种现象。在该领域内，已经有许多人努力对其进行命名和描述。然而，对其进行理论化的热情却要低得多，这意味着灾害文献未能充分解释“交融性社区体验”出现（或未出现）的社会条件。在本文中，我们综合了众多案例研究来做到这一点。这使我们超越了关于“交融性社区体验”是什么以及应该如何称呼它的简单表述，进而思考它出现的条件、应该如何概念化、可能阻碍“交融性社区体验”的因素，以及我们如何鼓励它。虽然本文主要是一项理论性工作，但确定“交融性社区体验”的促进因素和障碍对减少灾害风险（DRR）政策具有实际意义，因为“交融性社区体验”经常被证明是一种积极且强大的力量。
