Abstract

Disasters caused by natural phenomena are ubiquitous world over in terms of their occurrence. Myths and folklore are testament to this. The transition of natural phenomena into ‘natural’ disasters occurs only when humans are introduced. ‘Natural’ disasters have a social gradient to them, which differs vastly across societies. Epistemologically, disasters have been the forte of technocrats with social workers at best remaining at the fringes. This article is based on an empirical study undertaken with two communities who live in the flood affected Brahmaputra valley. It reveals a gap in the knowledge of the local realities—social, political, geographical resulting in grand and ineffective policy making. The current policies have a large imprint of the colonial with little being done in terms of developing alternate, localised and participatory methods of flood management. It demonstrates how the community’s efforts transcend a spectrum of stages moving from prevention and adaption to mitigation. For the Brahmaputra floods, the reality is extremely tenuous. Hence, it is not feasible for one knowledge system to understand the whole reality. Rather it needs to be acknowledged that multiple knowledge systems exist, and social workers need to be stakeholders in this process of knowledge creation and building of resilient communities.

中文翻译：

---

社会工作，灾难与社区-挑战职业的边界

摘要

就自然灾害而言，自然灾害造成的灾害无处不在。神话和民间传说证明了这一点。自然现象向“自然”灾害的转变只有在引入人类时才发生。“自然”灾害对他们而言具有社会梯度，在各个社会中差异很大。从认识论上讲，灾难一直是技术官僚的强项，社会工作者充其量只能留在边缘。本文基于对居住在受洪水影响的布拉马普特拉谷地中的两个社区的经验研究。它揭示了对当地现实（社会，政治，地理）知识的鸿沟，导致制定了宏伟而无效的政策。当前的政策在殖民地上留下了很大的烙印，而在发展替代政策，局部和参与式洪水管理方法。它展示了社区的努力如何跨越从预防和适应到缓解的一系列阶段。对于雅鲁藏布江洪水来说，现实是极其脆弱的。因此，一个知识体系无法理解整个现实是不可行的。相反，需要承认存在多种知识系统，并且在这一知识创造和建设弹性社区的过程中，社会工作者必须成为利益相关者。