This is how social scientists should act. The Social Science Research Council has set up the website Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences. SSRC explains:
"As analyses and "spin" of the Katrina crisis grow, we confront the sort of public issue to which a social science response is urgently needed. Accordingly, the SSRC has organized this web forum addressing the implications of the tragedy that extend beyond "natural disaster" "engineering failures," "cronyism" or other categories of interpretation that do not directly examine the underlying issues—political, social and economic—laid bare by the events surrounding Katrina."
Three texts are written by anthropologists:
An Imperfect Storm: Narratives of Calamity in a Liberal-Technocratic Age. By Alex de Waal
Un/natural Disasters, Here and There. By Stephen Jackson
Disasters and Forced Migration in the 21st Century. By Anthony Oliver-Smith
SEE ALSO
"Disasters do not just happen" - The Anthropology of Disaster (2)
The Anthropology of Disaster - Anthropologists on Katrina
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