ABSTRACT
The concept of resilience has received increasing attention in the study of disasters, particularly after the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Indeed, there is an ongoing effort to study effective ways to establish resilient communities that are not only prepared to survive a disaster, but that are able to “bounce back” from any particular natural or social threat. While the concept has been the subject of inquiry in various disciplines, including psychology (Norris, 2009), ecology (Donoghue, 2007), geography (Cutter, Boruff, & Shirley, 2003; Cutter, Burton, & Emrich, 2010), organization and management sciences (McManus et al., 2008), and safety management (Dynes, 2003; O'Brien et al., 2006), our interest is to investigate the sociological views on disaster resilience. In this chapter, we address how sociological tenets can help shape a better understanding on ways that may facilitate or impede disaster resilience. Based on our review of the research literature we create a sociological framework of disaster resilience. Finally, we examine the social capital component of our framework utilizing social capital data from seven counties in Central Florida.
