IBSS: Natural Hazards and Cultural Transformations

人类社会长期以来一直面临着各种各样的自然灾害。 通过对长期存在的社会进行分析，可以获得有关促进社会复原力的战略和方法的信息和见解，特别是在灾害反复发生的情况下。 这个跨学科的研究项目将采用来自广泛领域的理论和数据，包括文化人类学，考古学，心理学，地理学和气候学，以比较和对比不同的人群受到不同程度的频率和可预测性的自然灾害，特别注意影响粮食供应的危害。 由于研究人员将检查一套世界范围的数据库，以描述人类社会和文化在时间和空间上与灾害有关的动态，项目结果将有助于加强对影响社会成功应对各种自然灾害的因素的基本了解。 该项目还将协助政策制定者、规划者、决策者和其他人努力减轻危险事件的后果，方法是提供一个更广泛的知识框架，介绍社会在几十年、几百年或几千年来达成的解决方案。 该项目还将为本科生和研究生以及博士后学者提供特殊的跨学科教育和培训机会，该项目将比较通常由不同学科研究的社会和人口，在不同的地理和时间领域检验来自每一学科的理论。 为了最大限度地扩大环境和文化多样性的范围，研究人员将比较和对比世界各地的样本，这些样本在频率，严重程度和与食品生产，储存和可用性相关的危害经验的可预测性方面有所不同。 研究人员将考虑的研究问题包括：事件发生的频率是多少，以便人类计划它们？ 不可预测的灾害是否会导致与可预测的灾害不同的文化转变？ 在什么情况下，应急计划在面对比正常情况更严重或更频繁的自然灾害时不堪重负？ 研究人员将通过在三个不同领域和数据集上进行分析和开发模型来测试假设：（1）由民族志学家描述的100多个主要是前工业（“传统”）社会的全球样本;（2）由考古学家描述的史前传统的全球样本;（3）通过个人访谈收集的33个当代国家的全球样本。 为了补充来自历史和当代观测的自然灾害数据，研究人员将根据降雨和温度数据制定环境可预测性和可变性的措施，他们将收集古气候数据，以补充考古数据集。 控制不同类型的经济和政治制度，研究人员希望确定时间和空间上的弹性行为模式，例如应急计划，生计多样化以及扩大和巩固合作和网络的社会文化转型。 这些分析将有助于确定社会所采用的方法，这些方法使它们能够或多或少地成功地为极端事件做好准备，减少其不利影响。 该项目通过NSF跨学科行为和社会科学研究（IBSS）竞赛获得支持。

A broad range of natural hazards long have confronted human societies. Through analyses of societies that have persisted over very long periods of time, information and insights can be obtained regarding strategies and approaches that have fostered societal resilience, especially when hazards have been recurrent. This interdisciplinary research project will employ theories and data from a broach range of fields, including cultural anthropology, archaeology, psychology, geography, and climatology in order to compare and contrast a diverse set of populations subject to different levels of frequency and predictability of natural hazards, with special attention given to hazards that have impacted food supplies. Because the investigators will be examining a set of world-wide databases to characterize hazard-related dynamics of human societies and cultures over time and space, project findings will help enhance basic understanding of the factors that have influenced societal success in dealing with various natural hazards. The project also will assist policy makers, planners, decision makers, and others in trying to mitigate the consequences of hazardous events by providing a much broader framework of knowledge regarding solutions that societies have arrived at over decades, centuries, or millennia. The project also will provide special interdisciplinary education and training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students and for post-doctoral scholars.This project will compare societies and populations normally studied by different disciplines, testing theories derived from each of the disciplines across varied geographic and temporal domains. To maximize the range of both environmental and cultural diversity, the investigators will compare and contrast worldwide samples that vary in the frequency, severity, and predictability of hazards experience related to food production, storage, and availability. Research questions that the investigators will consider include the following: How often have events had to occur in order for humans to plan for them? Do unpredictable hazards lead to different cultural transformations than do more predictable hazards? Under what conditions are contingency plans overwhelmed in the face of natural hazards that are more severe or more frequent than normal? The investigators will test hypotheses by conducting analyses and developing models across three different domains and datasets: (1) a worldwide sample of more than 100 largely preindustrial ("traditional") societies described by ethnographers; (2) a worldwide sample of prehistoric traditions described by archaeologists; (3) and a worldwide sample of 33 contemporary countries with data collected through individual interviews. To compliment data on natural hazards from historical and contemporary observations, the investigators will develop measures of environmental predictability and variability based on rainfall and temperature data, and they will assemble paleoclimate data to complement the archaeological dataset. Controlling for different types of economies and political systems, the researchers expect to identify patterns of resilient behaviors in time and space, such as contingency plans, subsistence diversification, and sociocultural transformations that expand and solidify cooperation and networks. These analyses will help identify the approaches used by societies that have enabled them to have more or less success in preparing for extreme events and for reducing their adverse impacts. This project is supported through the NSF Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (IBSS) competition.