United States
£ GBP
Black Beaches and Bayous: The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster provides a multidisciplinary, international perspective on one of the major disaster events within the United States during the last ten years. Scholars from various disciplines including sociology, political science, ecology, psychology, and criminal justice investigate the different components and issues associated with this event. The contributors address topics such as the social and historical context of fossil fuel use, steps within the technological disaster process, and similarities and differences between this disaster and other technological disasters. They also discuss the social and psychological impacts on Gulf Coast residents, the transformation of natural ecological systems, changes in risk assessment, and media portrayals of the Obama administration and its response to this disaster.
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Foreword by Dr. George L. Amedee
Preface by Dr. Lisa A. Eargle and Dr. Ashraf M. Esmail
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. The U.S. Oil Industry’s Safety Record and the Need For More Domestic Oil Production / Jude Clemente
Chapter 2. Applying Technological Disaster Process Models to the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster / Lisa A. Eargle, Ashraf M. Esmail, Jas M. Sullivan, and Shyamal K. Das
Chapter 3. Beyond Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico: The Characteristics and Consequences of Catastrophe / John Barnshaw and Lynn Letukas
Chapter 4. —Corporate Catastrophes from UC Bhopal to BP Deepwater Horizon: Continuities in Causation, Corporate Negligence, and Crisis Management / Tomás Mac Sheoin and Stephen Zavestoski
Chapter 5. The Effects of Oil Spills on Ecological Systems / Jeffrey R. Wozniak
Chapter 6. The Gulf Oil Spill, Ecological Debt, and Environmental Justice in Louisiana: Lessons From Sociology / Timothy J. Haney
Chapter 7. A New Geography of Trouble / Daina Cheyenne Harvey
Chapter 8. Ecological Identity and Disaster Recovery in an Oil-Stained Landscape: Current and Future Policy Implications / DeMond Shondell Miller, Jason David Rivera, and Brandon Eric Fleming
Chapter 9. The Crude Awakening: Gulf Coast Residents Reflect on the BP Oil Spill and the 2010 Hurricane Season / Michelle Meyer Lueck and Lori Peek
Chapter 10. The Ninety-Day Storm: Mississippi Community Response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill / Jason S. Gordon and A. E. Luloff
Chapter 11. Disaster Vulnerability: The Differential Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster Among Alabama’s Gulf Coast Residents / James Hawdon and John Ryan
Chapter 12. Disaster Phases, Structural Vulnerability and Crime / Kelly Frailing and Dee Wood Harper
Chapter 13. Hazard, Outrage and Locality: An Analysis of Two Oil Spills / Amanda K. Goddard, Kenneth A. Lachlan and Patric R. Spence
Chapter 14. Resisting Corporatism: Citizens Fight Back Against the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster / Stan C. Weeber
Chapter 15. Disaster Distrust: Risk Assessment, Citizen Science and Technolegal Debates in the BP Oil Spill / Sabrina McCormick
Chapter 16. The President, the News, and the Oil Spill: An Examination of National and State Newspapers’ Framing of Obama and His Administration’s Response to the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill / Jas M. Sullivan and Meghan S. Sanders
Editors
Contributors
Lisa A. Eargle is a professor of sociology at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina. Her research examines disasters and their impacts upon society and the environment.
Ashraf Esmail is an assistant professor in social sciences at Southern University in New Orleans. His research interests include urban, multicultural, and peace education; family; cultural diversity; political sociology; criminology; social problems; and deviance.
"The solid research presented in Black Beaches and Bayous not only helps us understand the dynamics of 'na-tech' disasters, but more importantly, it can help us prepare for what inevitably will be the next one."
– Gregory D. Squires, professor of sociology and public policy & public administration, George Washington University
"When ecological disasters or catastrophes occur, like those of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the Deepwater Horizon explosion, everyday people are left to question how their actions or inactions helped to facilitate the problem. In the case of the BP oil spill, the authors of this text have astutely drawn connections between the norms of oil use, the risks associated with technological progress, how disasters of this magnitude change the rules of everyday life, and how catastrophes of this nature have both regional and global ramifications. Clearly, social scientists and social actors have been in need of a book of this depth and breadth. This text provides members of society with tools to deconstruct socio-ecological events and to consider avenues for resistance and change – a way to have agency in the face of social institutions (like corporations) that they would otherwise feel defenseless against."
– Sandra E. Weissinger, assistant professor of sociology, Southern University at New Orleans
