Social Work, Disasters and Communities—Challenging the Boundaries of the Profession

Abstract

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.